A Future Journey to the Elderly Support in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is not an exception from the global phenomenon of demographic aging. It is a relatively new issue in the country as its demographic transition started recently. An important issue on aging study is the support facility to the elderly. The support system to the elderly is gradually decreasing in this country though the burden does not reach the alarming situation. This paper tries to show the future path of demographic support capacity for the elderly based on secondary (1981–2001) and projected (2011–2071) data. The study shows a future gloomy picture of the elderly support facility in terms of both economic and caring aspects. This dimension of future inevitable aging problem needs proper attention to the policy makers for taking sustainable aging policies. Introduction of this agenda to the nation’s five-year planning will be effective to face the problem phase by phase. 1. Introduction Global population aging is a by-product of the demographic transition in which both mortality and fertility decline from high level to low levels. As the twentieth century drew to a close, population aging and its social and economic consequences were drawing increased attention from policy makers’ worldwide. The twenty-first century will witness even more rapid population aging than did the century just past. In many cases, more rapid population aging will be taking place in countries where the level of economic development is still low [1]. The topic of the elderly support was not an issue for discussion in most of the developing countries so long ago. Only a small proportion of population lived beyond middle ages; therefore, those few that actually survived into old age were also deified, solidly entrenched into the family support system. Decline in fertility has not only increased the proportion of people surviving to the old age but has also eroded the traditional support base in old age, that is, the family. The reduction in the size of successive birth cohort not only signifies the diminishing availability of youngster to support the older people but the shrinking of family size itself [2]. Measures of societal dependency in the form of age ratios tend largely to be used as surrogates for measures of economic support even though they should be seen merely as representing the contribution of age composition of the population to the economic support problem. While the rising dependency of the aged has been more than offset by the falling dependency of the children, the economic support problem of the elderly is the greater one when one considers public