Title:	Steps Toward a Planning Framework for Elder Care in the Arab World
Authors:	William B. Ward Mustafa Z. Younis
Keywords:	Planning
Issue Date:	2013
Publisher:	Springer
Description:	This monograph is an effort to review the elder care literature of the Arab world. It does not claim to be comprehensive but hopefully will stimulate others to fi nd holes in what exists now in order to extend the comprehensiveness. One important issue is that many Arab countries have a mandatory retirement age of 62 for government and teaching jobs with the possibility of extension to age 65 with yearly agreements, while those professions with low supply and high demand such as physicians and college professors have mandatory retirement ages of 69. Age discrimination appears to be legal and many government and private jobs apparently are open for individuals who are no more than 45 years of age (which varies). Such policies can result in an increase in poverty among the elderly (who may rely on their adult children) and create long term structural unemployment resulting in the loss of the talents of employees between the age of 42 and 62 in occupations in demand. The Arab world has some of the highest population growth rates in the world with rapid growth of the 60+ population. This growth has led to drops in GDP, as well as to increases in in fl ation and unemployment that are of concern. The decline of the extended family and the increases in the number of nuclear family units has begun to eat away at the support system that the elderly have had in the past. In addition, in less than a half millennium, farmers and nomads have found their way into urban areas that, in the main, did not exist in the fi rst part of the 20 th century. The 22 countries of the Arab world have the advantage of having a uni fi ed language and culture that can be used to expedite the development of area wide approaches to a system of elder care. However, the lack of economic and political uni fi cation, such as a common market, common currency, open trade and free movement of commodities and labor across boundaries, present initial barriers. Most of the population originally had a lower incidence of heart problems due to their Mediterranean diet and lifestyle such as farming and animal husbandry which mandated walking and working. However, with modernization and ease of transportation, the western diet with heavy focus on fast food has increased. Chronic diseases are extremely widespread in the area, with deaths from cancer, hypertension cardiovascular disease, and diabetes at all-time highs. The 60+ population has begun to use health care services at rates higher than the general population as a result. Costs are higher to support this group and the expertise and staf fi ng are not available currently to meet the demand.
URI:	http://10.6.20.12:80/handle/123456789/52555
ISBN:	978-1-4614-5978-1
Appears in Collections:	Population Studies

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