Indonesian Senior Citizens to Increase to 71.6 Million in 2050

Jakarta - The number of Indonesian senior citizens is expected to increase to 71.6 million in 2050, which will become a heavy task for the government to handle, a social affairs ministry official said. "Indonesia now has 28 million senior citizens or about eight percent of the population. About 1.8 percent of the number are neglected," Director of the Social Affairs Ministry for Senior Citizens Services Yulia Suhartini said here on Wednesday. Speaking to a symposium entitled: "Symposium On Ageing In The 21t Century: A Celebration And A Challenge," organized by a number of social organizations in cooperation with the UNFPA, Yulia said the social affairs ministry could handle only a small number of the neglected aging citizens. She said that the government, in this case the ministry of social affairs, was only able to handle 46,500 neglected elderly people. Of this number, 26,000 were handled through an assistance program, 1,600 through home care and 4,500 through day care services. The ministry of social affairs has set a fund of Rp84 billion for the handling of elderly people of which Rp67 billion is designed for elders' assistance program. Besides, Rp8 billion is designed for home care, day care and accompaniment services. "The number of elderly people who could be helped is still small. Therefore, we hope that all parties could also provide assistance. After all, the number of senior citizens will continue to increase in the future," she said. The social affairs ministry official said that the number of elderly people in Indonesia would increase in the future because the country's people's life expectancy has also increased to 72 years. It is predicted that the number of aging people in 2025 will reach 40 million and in 2050 it will swell to 71.6 million. (*)