Seminar talks upholding elderly resources in development

 

Hanoi (VNA) - A seminar on upholding the elderly resources in socio-economic development in adaptation with populating aging was held in Hanoi on December 14.

Speaking at the event, head of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute for Family and Gender Studies Tran Thi Minh Thi said Vietnam is in the face of challenges caused by rapid population aging, including more expenses on health care, retirement, allowance and social welfare.

As of the late 2017, the country was home to 11 million senior citizens, accounting for nearly 12 percent of the population, about 2 million of them aged above 80. Vietnam is forecast to enter the aging stage by 2035 with nearly 21 million old persons. They are expected to make up 20 percent of the population by 2038 and around 25 percent by 2049.

Moreover, 70 percent of the elderly still go to work to earn a living while they are easily vulnerable to socio-economic risks when their children are jobless. Most of them also suffer non-communicable and chronic diseases, leading to high health care cost and overload in hospitals.

Participants discussed policies to encourage firms to hire elderly workers, ensure jobs for middle-age workers in manufacturing and processing sector, improve the quality of worker demand forecast, and offer vocational training to them.

Many opinions suggested measures to develop social welfare toward covering the entire population, prevent and mitigate risks for vulnerable groups, sustainably reduce poverty and narrow development gap among zones and regions, develop youth and gender equality for women’s advancement, and gradually narrow gender gap in the fields of politics, economy, socio-culture and family affairs./.