Reykjavík Grapevine - 08.04.2016, Síða 10

Iceland Is
Getting Older
How Iceland treats its pensioners, and
how the face of the country is changing
Words PAUL FONTAINE Photos ART BICNICK
Global context
Before we take a look at what a re-
tired person in Iceland is provid-
ed, by municipal and national of-
fices alike, we should take a look at
how Iceland stacks up against the
rest of the world. The 2015 Global
Age Watch Index currently ranks
Iceland 7th in the world in terms
of quality of care for the elderly.
Indeed, services ranging from
housing and pensions to social
activities and transport are well
provided for by local and national
government services alike. How-
ever, as with any other country in
the developed world, funding for
all these services rests upon the
expectation that there will always
be more young people paying into
government coffers than elderly
people drawing from them. Ice-
land is rapidly approaching the
point where the treasury will have
quite a burden to bear.
According to Statistics Iceland,
Icelanders are getting older: in
1990, the average Icelander was
33. Today, the average age is up to
37.2. Currently, just over 19% of the
population is over the age of 60.
By 2030, that number will climb
to over 25%; by 2050, over 30%. In
order to continue to provide the
numerous services available to
the elderly that Iceland currently
provides, there are a few options
on the table: relax immigration,
raises taxes, or both.
While this matter will have to
be dealt with, and soon, the elderly
in Iceland do currently have it pret-
ty good. There still remain, howev-
er, certain groups of elderly people
who are especially vulnerable.
The current situation
“Most senior citizens are doing
well,” Þórunn Sveinbjörnsdót-
tir, the chairperson of the Soci-
ety of Senior Citizens, told the
Grapevine. “But there are some
who are struggling; who have too
little. These are usually people on
the rental market. There are also
people who sustained losses dur-
ing the [autumn 2008] bank crash.
These are the kinds of people we
hear about who don’t have enough
to live on by the time the 20th or
the 25th of the month arrives.”
Rental prices, in Reykjavík espe-
cially, have been increasing signifi-
cantly, and many have attributed
this to an increase in demand from
tourists willing to rent an apart-
ment for a couple weeks or even
days. But native Icelanders who rent
are not the only ones at risk.
“There are also older immi-
grants arriving,” Þórunn said.
“They need, as they are not eligi-
ble for the national pension [from
Social Insurance Administration],
to look to local authorities for as-
sistance. It’s a pretty complicated
system for new arrivals.”
The point about older immi-
grants in Iceland is one immi-
grant councilor for the City of
Reykjavík Barbara Kristvinsson is
familiar with. She spoke with us
about some of the obstacles these
people face.
“One of the difficulties they
encounter can be the language,
as always. It's a hard enough sys-
tem for Icelanders to understand
in their own language,” she said.
“If you're over the age of 67, you
shouldn't be getting social welfare
payments from the municipalities
anymore. You should be getting a
pension from the Social Insurance
Administration (Tryggingastof-
nun). But these people don't have
any right to Tryggingastofnun.
People are still trying to figure out
the legalities of that, and they can
be tricky legalities, because these
immigrants have to prove that
they don't have rights.”
Barbara also mentions some of
the social effects of being a senior
immigrant in Iceland.
“I think that integrating is
tough,” she told us. “It's hard
enough having to integrate in a
foreign country, but try having
to integrate into a nursing home,
where you're maybe not going
to get your daughter to cook you
food from your home. They can't
engage in the usual small talk of
getting to know inter-family con-
nections. It's very lonesome and
isolating.”
Reykjavík is taking steps to
address this issue. Recently, the
city announced it was going to
be participating in the global Age
Friendly Cities campaign, which
aims to make the capital a better
place to grow old in. This will in-
clude increasing access to health
services, but also increasing social
events for seniors, making infor-
mation more accessible, and other
programmes. This campaign is to
include senior immigrants—not
only as part of the target audience,
but also among the campaign or-
ganisers themselves.
“Maybe the laws [concerning
pension funds] will be reviewed,
in light of how many more elderly
immigrants there are,” Þórunn
said, adding that she has seen
casework for these people in-
crease.
What we’re doing right, what we
could do better
We asked Þórunn to break down
for us what Iceland is doing well
for its senior citizens, and what
it’s doing not-so-well.
“Where we’re doing well is
we’re living longer,” she said, and
the facts speak for themselves in
this case—an Icelander who is 60
years old can expect to live, on av-
erage, for another 25 years. “At the
same time, we’ve been fighting
for many years for these people to
have a little more money.”
In fact, the national pension
fund’s full monthly allowance
amounts to 25,700 ISK. As anyone
who has gone grocery shopping in
Iceland can attest, this may not
necessarily be enough to even eat
off of, let alone pay for other goods
and services that a senior citizen
might want to enjoy. At the same
time, the combined powers of the
local authorities and the state
provide the elderly with services
such as transportation, home-
delivered food, social events and
activities, home cleaning services,
visiting nurses and, should the
need arise, collective living run by
municipalities and private com-
panies alike.
One of the more recent exam-
ples of services for the elderly that
have drawn national attention are
the home-delivered meals provid-
ed by the city. These meals arrive
cold, and need to be microwaved
to be warmed up. Many senior cit-
izens complained that these meals
were unappetizing, or that they
had difficulty preparing them for
themselves. The criticism was so
concerted that Reykjavík Mayor
Dagur B. Eggertsson took it upon
himself to eat these meals every
day for a week, after which he con-
cluded that the food was of the
highest quality.
“Some people found the food
good, others found it bad,” Þórunn
said. “Some other people found
the packages difficult to open, or
found it complicated to heat the
food up in the right way.”
This might be particularly the
case where elderly single men are
concerned. As Þórunn explained,
these men belong to a generation
used to having their mothers, and
then their wives, attend to such
matters as cooking and clean-
ing. Upon reaching retirement
age, and perhaps outliving their
spouses, they find themselves at a
loss when it comes to being able to
attend to these basic needs—as-
suming they are even physically
capable.
“We want increased respect”
While access to information about
services for the elderly from the
City of Reykjavík is fairly easy, for
Icelanders and immigrants alike,
the same cannot be said for the
Ministry of Welfare. It was fairly
easy to find a list of available ser-
vices, and how to apply for them,
on the Ministry’s Icelandic page,
but this information proved impos-
sible to find in any other language.
Counselling services are avail-
able, both locally and nationally,
for elderly immigrants who want to
know their rights, but Þórunn be-
lieves Iceland could do even better.
“We want increased respect,”
she told us, when asked what the
major goals were for Iceland’s el-
derly. “And that goes for the im-
migrants, too. Those who are new
to Iceland also want respect from
others. We also want society to
understand how important it is
to have this group, too,” she add-
ed, pointing out that the elderly
are often tasked with babysitting
younger relatives, picking them
up from school and other family
matters.
It should also be pointed out
that not only do senior citizens
comprise the highest percentage
of voters for the ruling coalition of
the Progressive Party and the In-
dependence Party; senior citizens
vote in higher percentages than
any other age group in the coun-
try, according to the latest data
from Market and Media Research.
As Iceland’s population contin-
ues to age, being able to maintain,
let alone improve, these globally
high standards will prove increas-
ingly challenging for the Icelandic
government. As seniors continue
to go to the polls more than any
other age group, upcoming par-
liamentarians will need to have
some idea of how to keep these
standards high as demand grows.
Not solely from the point of view
of winning votes, but more im-
portantly, to maintain the health
of the country overall.
SHARE: gpv.is/elders
Growing old isn’t easy in any country in the world. As
a person leaves the workforce, their available prospects
for survival could range from a comfortable retirement to
abject squalor. As far as Iceland is concerned, there are few
better countries in the entire world in which to grow old,
but this does not mean the country is invulnerable. In fact,
as the population continues to age, new measures will be
needed to ensure the elderly continue to get the high level
of care they currently enjoy.
ANALYSIS
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 4 — 2016
10