Senior Citizens to Impact 250 Loksabha Seats in coming Election

MUMBAI , INDIA / POLITICS / APRIL 15th , 2013 

By Sailesh Mishra

Indian Politics ‘Newest’ Vote Bank: Senior Citizens to Impact on 250 Loksabha Seats in coming Election

Taking a cue from recent study “Social Media & Lok Sabha Elections”, by IRIS Knowledge Foundation and supported by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), on how Facebook and other social media will impact 160 seats in coming Election, what immediately came to my mind was Elder Population impact on Indian Democracy. I have been trying to market this idea since launch of Silver Innings in April 2008. 

As on 2012 Senior Citizens Population in India is 100 million (10 crore) that comes to roughly 10% of Total Population.  But when we take into account the Total Voting Population i.e. 18+ age group, then Senior Citizens becomes roughly 26% of Voting Population, here I have not taken into account Senior’s influence on Family voting. 

Indian Parliament has 543 constituencies / seats and this 26% strong Vote Bank of Senior Citizens will surely impact more then 250 constituencies. This ‘new’ Senior Citizens Vote bank always existed but no one including elders ever realised their strength . This time 2013/14 Parliamentary and State Election will be change in new thought process towards our elders , they deserved to be respected and cared for as our great tradition need to travel in this new speed changing society . 

I would be happy if any research agency or students take up this interesting subject of ‘Senior Citizens Voting Impact on Indian Politics‘. 

In recent times, since last 3 years there has been contestant activity by most of the political parties to woo Senior Citizens by organising onetime events, trips, goodies etc , but they have failed to make a concrete Long Term Policy & Programme for doubling Ageing population . Government , Politicians and Political parties are Ageing but they don’t bother about Ageing population , which many demographer describe as ‘ Silver Tsunami ‘ , which will have huge economic and social impact on India’s growth . Not to forget the same story will repeat in most of the developing countries. 

Due to advocacy and awareness campaign like ‘ 16^th August National Protest Day’  by organization’s like AISCCON, Silver Inning Foundation and a united front called Join Action Committee (JAC) since 16^th August 2010 , of more than 32 All India organisation’s working for and with Senior Citizens and newly formed  Pension Parisad ; there has been marked improvement in channelizing & mobilising Senior Citizens as united group demanding basic rights from central and state governments . Senior Citizens pan India, has been slowly realizing their strength and can’t be fooled any more by this goodies of politicians.

Social Media including Facebook and Twitter, has added new type of activism and in fact renewed the whole advocacy movement, Silver Innings a pioneer in social media usage for ageing and many youth and elders have taken this technology route for outreach and mobilising elders and their family.

Iam happy that , Elders like always will give shape to our Future , whatever they demand today will be for betterment of more then 85% of total population. This strengthen my firm view that ‘Our Elders Are Change maker’s ‘, the change we all want to see.

About Author: 

Sailesh Mishra is Founder President of 'Silver Innings' a socail enterprise and Silver Inning Foundation, a NGO working with Senior Citizens and has more then 6 years hard core activist experience in Ageing domain . His unique PR and ICT tool usage for Ageing has made him Internationally known Gerontology Consultant.  He may be contacted at silverinnings@gmail.com

 

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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights.
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

GREECE: Public suicide of an indebted pensioner in Athens

BERLIN, Germany: Der Spiegel International, April 5, 2012

Austerity Suicide

Pensioner's Death Sparks Clashes in Athens

DPA

Violent protests have erupted in Athens following the public suicide of a 77-year-old retired man. A note he left behind accused the Greek government of impoverishing him with its debt crisis austerity measures, a message that resonated with demonstrators. Many are blaming the state for his death.

The public suicide of an indebted pensioner in Athens on Wednesday has touched a nerve in the Greek capital, sparking violent clashes with police.

The 77-year-old retired pharmacist shot himself in the head during the morning rush-hour near the central Syntagma Square, police said on Wednesday. In a note found in his clothing, the man reportedly blamed the debt crisis and austerity measures for his suicide. After paying into his pension for 35 years, the government had rendered it too small to survive, he said in the message, published by local media. "I find no other solution than a dignified end before I start searching through the trash for food," it read.

The square where the incident occurred, just opposite the parliament building, has already been the site of frequent protests during Greece's debt crisis, and people gathered once again on Wednesday to mourn the unnamed pensioner's death. The death is the latest in a growing number of suicides in Greece, a country grappling with dramatic financial troubles that have led to high unemployment, lower wages and shrinking pension payments.


Some people posted notes to the tree under which he died, with messages like, "It was a murder, not a suicide," and "Austerity kills." Meanwhile, hundreds of others marched toward parliament chanting similar slogans.


'Difficult Hours'


"This suicide is political in nature and heavy in symbolism," Vassilis Papadopoulos, protest organizer and spokesman for the "I won't pay" group told the Associated Press. "It's not like a suicide at home."

The man's suicide quickly became a political issue in the country, with Prime Minister Lucas Papademos issuing a statement as protesters gathered. "It is tragic for one of our fellow citizens to end his life," he said. "In these difficult hours for our society we must all -- the state and the citizens -- support the people among us who are desperate."


An estimated 1,500 people attended the anti-austerity protests, and by nightfall they turned violent. Young people reportedly threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at riot police, who fired tear gas and flash grenades in response. No injuries were reported.


No relief is in sight for Greece, despite international financial aid. By the end of 2012, the country's economy is expected to contract by 4.5 percent and remain in a recession until the following year, according to the Bank of Greece's annual report, released last month. The country's economy already took a 7 percent hit in 2011
.

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2012
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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights. 
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

JAPAN: Master of public finance brings life to numbers

TOKYO, Japan / The Japan Times / Life in Japan / April 1, 2012

Naohiko Jinno, one of Japan's foremost economists, says there are far more important things than growth and all that money stuff

By TOMOKO OTAKE, Staff writer

Born the grandson of a once-prosperous textile manufacturer in Urawa, Saitama Prefecture, Naohiko Jinno says that when he was growing up he was told by his mother, over and over again, that money was not important.

Naohiko Jinno, chairman of the government's Local Public Finance Council, makes a point during his JT interview. YOSHIAKI MIURA

Now aged 66, and a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Tokyo, Jinno recalls his mother telling him so many times that money doesn't matter — it's the things you can't buy with money that really matter.

Ensconced last week in his office at the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry, where he serves as chairman of the Local Public Finance Council, Jinno tells how his family's business went bankrupt after his grandfather refused to become part of the munitions industry during World War II.

"My mother would say that it's okay to lose school textbooks because you can buy them again. But she said I shouldn't lose my notebooks, which are filled with my precious scribbles, and that I should cherish such things as love, friendships and ties with people, which I cannot buy with money."

Later, as our interview develops, it becomes increasingly clear that his singular upbringing — and his family's ancestral roots as Shinto shrine priests — had a significant influence on Jinno, now Japan's foremost authority on public finance.

Throughout his long years at Todai (as the University of Tokyo is widely known) teaching the nation's top-notch students, Jinno took the position that the role of public finance — a branch of economics that revolves around the levying of taxes and the redistribution of wealth back to citizens in the form of public services — should be "to find and share solutions to the common difficulties people encounter in life."

Jinno, who is particularly knowledgeable about the vaunted Scandinavian welfare systems, has been extremely critical of "neoliberalism" — an approach to economics that pursues the privatization of government services and the deregulation and aggressive liberalization of trade.

This approach was clearly evidenced in the policies of the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and U.S. President Ronald Reagan during their terms of office spanning 1979-90 and 1981-89 respectively. In Japan, there was a relatively brief revival of neoliberalism from 2001 to 2005, when "lion hair" Junichiro Koizumi was at the prime ministerial helm. Backed by high support ratings, the photogenic Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leader carried out a series of structural and deregulatory reforms affecting both the pension and health-care systems, as well as the privatization of postal services and the public corporations operating highways.

However, due to Koizumi's neoliberalism, Jinno argues that Japanese people have lost the close community ties and the sense of life-security they previously had, since they have been driven into excessive competition with each other, while poverty and income disparity both soared.

"A society in which its top political leader shakes the mane of his hair and screams, 'What's wrong with inequality?' 'There is no society without inequality!' is a society of despair," he wrote on the first page of his 2010 book "Wakachiai no Keizaigaku" ("Economics of Sharing"). "It's plain as daylight that such a society of despair would descend into a dystopia once it were hit by the tragic waves of a global economic depression."

In contrast to the Koizumi approach, Jinno argues that Japan should restore its social cohesion in which everyone has his or her place in society, and where the elimination of inequality and poverty — not economic growth — is the fundamental guiding light of public policy.

This stress on linking public finance not only with politics but also with society, has won Jinno supporters across the social spectrum — from academia and citizens groups to labor unions and many sections of the government bureaucracy. Moreover, in 2009, he was awarded a Purple Ribbon Medal of Honor, which is, of six kinds of medals given by the national government and awarded by the Emperor, the one that rewards academic and artistic achievement. Continue reading...

What do you think is causing the turmoil in Japan?

Japan's problem is that there is no social vision. The vision of countries in continental Europe, especially the Scandinavian ones, is that you need big governments to support everyone in the country. So people are heavily taxed, and that tax is redistributed to help every member of society. In Denmark, up to 70 percent of your income goes in tax. In contrast, the Anglo-Saxon nations have opted for smaller governments, and while people in such societies are expected to be self-reliant, the poor are not expected to pay much in taxes. Only the rich pay taxes to maintain the minimum functions of government. So taxes in the U.S., much of which are in the form of income taxes, are progressive (meaning the more you earn, the more you pay), while those in Sweden — where the consumption tax is 25 percent — are regressive (meaning the poor pay a higher proportion of their income in tax than do the better off). However, in Sweden if you pay taxes, the government will make sure you get free education, free child-care services and free care when you grow old and can no longer work.

Japan is worried about how it's viewed by the U.S., so it has somewhat opted for a "smaller government" model. But instead of emulating the U.S. taxation model and raising the income tax, it suddenly looks to Europe. (Political leaders in Japan) say Japan should raise its consumption tax — noting it is far lower than the rates in European countries, where consumption taxes are more than 10 percent. So Japan is aiming for a regressive tax system while cutting government services....There's more...

Japan's tax revenues are expected to decline further as the population grays?

(c) The Japan Times
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Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

UK: Elderly react to lifestyle downturn with generosity

LONDON, England / The Telegraph / News / March 3, 2012

Older people feel poorer, less happy and less well than they did a year ago as the effects of the economic downturn take their toll, research shows.

By John Bingham, Social Affairs Editor

Elderly react to downturn in lifestyle with generosity Photo: ALAMY

The study involving more than 10,000 people over the age of 50 found a marked deterioration in the quality of life of older people in the last year. 

But despite the steady "corrosion" of living conditions, the survey found that people in their 70s were more likely to be optimistic than those in their 50s and 60s. The survey also showed that many older people have reacted to tough times by finding ways to help their children and grandchildren out financially.

The company carries out a wide-ranging poll of thousands of older people every three months asking detailed questions about everything from their finances to their sex lives.

A third (32%) of those polled in the first three months of this year reported poorer living standards than at the start of 2011. The finding translates into an overall rating of -14 of Saga’s quality of life barometer, which balances negative answers against positive responses.

The measure for happiness was also negative at -2.5, meaning that more people said they felt less happy than at the same time last year, and the measure for health produced a reading of -9.3 for the first part of this year.

But Saga noted that older people appeared to display more of a “grin and bear it” attitude than those immediately younger.

When asked about how worthwhile they felt what they did in their daily life were, those in their early 50s were 66 per cent satisfied but those in their late 60s and early 70s rated their feelings of worth at 70 per cent.

While Money worries came far ahead of crime or health in older people’s minds, many reacted to tough economic times with generosity.

When asked what they were doing in response to the rising cost of living, the second most popular response – cited by 32 per cent – was helping their children or grandchildren out financially.

The biggest response to hardship – cited by 45 per cent – was cutting back on non-essential spending.

Dr Ros Altmann, director general of Saga said: “Our findings show that these are generations that all of society can learn from, despite their economic difficulties they feel more positive with age.

“We are still a long way from reporting a ‘positive’ quality of life for the over 50s. Although there seems to have been a minor improvement over the last quarter, it’s too early to say whether this marks the start of a new trend towards true quality of life.”

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2012

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Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

JAPAN: Women Beat Men to Jobs as ‘Mancession’ Spurs Deflation

OSAKA, Japan / BusinessWeek / December 27, 2011

Bloomberg

By Aki Ito and Toru Fujioka


Three times a week, Seiya Ogawa bikes to an unemployment center in Kadoma, home to Panasonic Corp., looking for work to help pay for his son’s final year at college.

“At this point, I’m willing to take any job,” said the 49-year-old, who assembled electronic circuit boards in what was once a bustling manufacturing suburb of Osaka, Japan’s third- largest city. This month, it’s officially one year since he first signed on at the center, and “it’s like my humanity’s been stripped from me,” he said.

Ogawa and his son rely on the incomes of his wife and daughter, a social role reversal that is spreading in Japan as factories and building companies fire workers and services that hire mostly women add employees. The new jobs pay lower average wages, making it harder for Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to spur consumer spending and pull the world’s third-largest economy out of a decade of deflation. The increasing burden as breadwinners also gives women less incentive to marry and have children early in a country that already has the fastest-aging population in the developed world.

“With Japanese companies increasingly moving abroad and a shrinking population making growth in construction work unlikely, these sectors just can’t absorb male workers the way they used to,” said Toshihiro Nagahama, chief economist at Dai- Ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo. “Nominal wages are falling and falling as a result. This mancession is far from over.”

National Pride

Japan’s economy is shifting from monozukuri, or making things -- which the nation prides itself on -- to services, especially those catering to the 29 million seniors over age 64. Manufacturing and building industries, where seven out of 10 staff are male, will lose 4 million positions this decade, according to Tokyo-based Works Institute, funded by employment- services provider Recruit Co. Health care, 74 percent female, added people at the fastest pace across all industries in the past three years, growing 16 percent, Labor Ministry data show.

The shift is accelerating, thanks to a near record-high currency that’s wiping out profits at exporters including Panasonic and Sony Corp., giving the government no time to ease the transition. Panasonic forecast its biggest annual loss in a decade this fiscal year, while Sony estimated it will lose 90 billion yen ($1.2 billion).

Panasonic and Sony shares have slumped 45 percent and 53 percent this year, helping pull the benchmark Topix index 21 percent lower. At the same time, Message Co., the nation’s second-biggest operator of nursing homes by number of rooms, has risen 2.3 percent, and Nichii Gakkan Co., operator of the largest number of homes, is up 25 percent.

‘Future of Japan’

Services such as nursing and health care are “the future of Japan,” said Curtis Freeze, founder of Honolulu-based Prospect Asset Management Inc., who is considering adding Message to the $300 million that Prospect manages because its employment policies may reduce staff-turnover costs. Manufacturers “are in the middle of restructuring, and they’re going to struggle. It’s the smaller services companies that will do most of the hiring.”

Health care, with 19 percent of working women, isn’t the only field to add jobs in the past three years: Education -- another profession where women outnumber men -- as well as research, restaurants and real estate also have grown, even as Japan lost a net 12.1 million positions.

Forty-two percent of people employed in 2010 were women, the highest share since the Labor Ministry made comparable data available in 1973, when the figure was 38.5 percent.

‘Really Tough’

“It’s really tough right now,” said Reiko Sato, 31, at the government employment office near her home in Tokyo. “It’s the end of the year, so there are lots of short-term positions at department stores or restaurants that everyone’s competing to get. It’s easier for the girls, because that’s who the stores want. I just feel bad for the men who have to come here. They probably won’t have something in time for the New Year.”

Manufacturing, where men outnumber women by more than 2-to- 1, is still Japan’s largest employer, accounting for about 16 percent of its 62.5 million workers. In construction, the ratio of men to women is 6-to-1. Since October 2008, the former shrank payrolls by 9 percent and the latter by 11 percent. Meanwhile, the health-care workforce will grow 32 percent from 2010 to 2020, according to Works Institute.

Pay Gap

As a result, one of the developed world’s biggest gender- pay gaps -- second only to South Korea and roughly double the average in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development -- is narrowing. Women between 30 and 34 earned an average 2.99 million yen last year, 69 percent of the 4.32 million yen for men, according to National Tax Agency data. That’s up from 55 percent in 1978.

The increase may help shift consumer spending toward services women prefer, such as traveling and dining out, and away from durable goods including cars and electronics, said Kyohei Morita, chief Japan economist at Barclays Capital in Tokyo. HIS Co., Japan’s largest listed travel agency, has risen 3.7 percent this year, to 2,128 yen.

“It’s because I work that I can go on these trips and buy my favorite makeup,” said Ayumi Ohtaki, a 27-year-old call- center operator in Tokyo who earns 240,000 yen a month. While she’s in no hurry to marry, she said she would want to keep her job after her wedding to ensure she could continue to buy the things she wants.

“If the money’s just from my husband, I wouldn’t be able to do anything fun,” she said.

Birth Rate

With women like Ohtaki marrying later and delaying starting a family, and more men struggling to find work, Japan’s falling birth rate is likely to get worse, said Mary Brinton, a sociology professor at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who studied the lives of young Japanese men shut out of well-paid, full-time work in the 1990s.

The number of babies born in 2010 was 1.07 million, down from 1.19 million in 2000, according to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.

“This so-called mancession is going to cause continuing problems for the marriage rate and birth rate,” she said. “Many young Japanese men say they want to have a stable job before they consider marrying.”

Even so, the shift toward more female employees isn’t likely to boost overall consumer spending because the factory jobs being lost paid more than the newly created service positions. Social services and nursing paid an average 229,732 yen a month last year, 63 percent of the 362,340 yen for factory workers and 62 percent of the 373,288 yen earned in construction, according to the labor ministry.

“The reality is that women get paid less,” Morita said.

Global Trend

The trend of women replacing men in Japan’s workforce mirrors a similar shift in other developed nations as companies cut back payrolls. Last year, the average male unemployment rate among the OECD countries was 8.5 percent, compared with 8.1 percent for women, according to the organization’s website. In 2000, the situation was reversed, with 5.8 percent of men jobless and 6.8 percent of female workers.

Japan’s unemployment rate in 2010 was 5.4 percent for men and 4.6 percent for women, a record gap. Joblessness may rise to 7.1 percent for men and 5.9 percent for women by 2020, Works Institute estimates.

That’s a bleak outlook for Ogawa, who lives alongside Kadoma’s rusting, shuttered factories, which once drew laborers from across Japan as they boomed with the Panasonic headquarters they surround. He says the stagnation has changed the attitude of young people in their 20s like his son and daughter, who hoard the money they earn rather than spending it.

“It’s hard to tell them to aim high when I’m struggling to find a job,” Ogawa said. “I don’t dare talk about my good times when I was their age; they just wouldn’t understand.”

With assistance from Kanoko Matsuyama and Eleanor Warnock in Tokyo. Editor: Adam Majendie, Melinda Grenier. To contact the reporters on this story: 
Aki Ito in Tokyo at aito16@bloomberg.net; Toru Fujioka in Tokyo at tfujioka1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Panckhurst at ppanckhurst@bloomberg.net

©2011 BLOOMBERG L.P.

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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights. 
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

USA: Unemployed Seniors Struggle to Find Work

NEW YORK, NY / The Uptowner / December 22,2011

By Lucy Pawle

Jabir Elamin searches employment websites at the Department of Labor in Harlem
(Photo by Lucy Pawle)

Sitting in the waiting room on the fourth floor of the New York Department of Human Resources in Harlem, Mozel Williams, 77, is applying for food stamps for the first time in her life. “I was always able to provide for myself. This is the first time I’ve had to apply for anything,” she says, her eyes watering. Pulling a handkerchief from her pocket, she takes off her glasses and wipes away tears.

A short African-American woman in an oversized black coat, Harlem native Williams retired from housekeeping in 2004 after 32 years, but the cost of living means she needs a job again. The $930 Social Security payment she receives each month has become increasingly inadequate. “The rent I’m paying overrides anything coming in. It’s over $1,000,” she says.

But eight months of job-hunting has proved unsuccessful, which is why Williams is here. “I need help badly,” she says.

Her problems are not unusual. Around 2.2 million Americans over 55 are unemployed, double the number in 2007. That represents 15.7 percent of total unemployment, according to October data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. New York City currently has 8.8 percent unemployment.

While recent layoffs account for the majority of unemployed seniors, re-entrants into the workforce have also risen substantially and account for almost a quarter, according to an October 2010 Congressional Research Service analysis.

Older workers aren’t targeted in layoffs; in fact they are often the last to go, says Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. “Employers typically lay off people with the least seniority, which is more typically the younger people,” he says.

But the rise in job-hunting seniors is pushing up their unemployment rate. In some cases, debt has forced their return to work. Thirty percent of unemployed seniors have more credit card debt than retirement savings and 41 percent have as much, according to a November 2010 report from the Sloan Center on Aging and Work at Boston College.
                                                                      

Williams needs to work because of the rising cost of living. Her rent is “cleaning me out of everything,” she says, increasing $150 a month this year. Health costs and rising food prices concern her too.

Such issues are familiar to staffers at Single Stop, an anti-poverty program with two Harlem centers; it launched an initiative this year specifically targeting the elderly. “There’s a disparity between the flat-lining of Social Security income and the skyrocketing medical expenses,” says communications director Grace Lichtenstein. Single Stop monitors seniors’ poverty rate, which this year jumped from 9 to 16.1 percent when the Census Bureau began including medical expenses and other costs.

Older unemployed workers not only give up things that they want, but things that they need, says Carl Van Horn, director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. “They are particularly hurt by giving up on health care,” he says, “and they also cut back on food and other essentials.”

                                                                       

Jabir Elamin, 59, walks into the Labor Department on West 125th Street early on a Monday morning. He got laid off in 2008, so he’s there three times a week to use the Internet for job-hunting “You’ve got to be proactive,” he says.

But the job fairs advertised on the department’s website have passed and Elamin has already applied for the one suitable position he finds. “No one ever got back in touch with me,” he says. But he writes down the contact details again anyway.

While seniors may not be the first fired, they are often the last hired. They take nine weeks longer to find work than younger competitors, says the Bureau of Labor Statistics, their searches averaging just over a year.

“There’s a lot of ageism out there,” says Maria Serrano, program director of the Senior Employment Program at the New York City Department of Aging. “There’s enormous competition with the younger workers, workers from other parts of America, and from all over the world now.”

Baker agrees. “It’s formally illegal to discriminate against people on age but people do it,” he says. “I’d be surprised if an employer was more likely to pick a man in his 50s.”

This isn’t news to Elamin. “I’ve found discrimination against my age on a daily basis,” he claims, “but I think it’s very foolish.” A licensed real-estate broker for 21 years, among many other jobs, he feels his age should count in his favor. “Experience is just as important as education and will sometimes take you further,” he says.

Serrano says technology presents the biggest barrier for older job-seekers. “Many of the seniors are not conditioned with the computer skills that are necessary,” she says. “We trying to help people to do the cross-over, but it’s a challenge.” The program had 1,200 participants last year and applicants have increased significantly since 2008. But this year brought 25 percent cuts in federal funding, “slowing us down a little bit,” Serrano says diplomatically.

These government programs are simply inadequate, however, for the problems seniors now face, says Van Horn. “Many are designed for short and shallow recessions. This is neither,” he says.

Elamin enrolled in the department’s program for four months, doing computer training while earning $7.50 an hour, 12 hours a week. But he has doubts about its usefulness. “I learned things that I hadn’t known before, but it didn’t get me a job,” he says. He blames employers who are “insensitive to the needs and to the values that the elderly can bring to the table,” not the Department of Aging.

Baker shares Elamin’s skepticism. “There just aren’t enough jobs,” he says. “So far as these programs can give workers skills, that’s good, but it’s just shuffling musical chairs.”



A lack of Internet access compounds the problem for many job-hunting seniors. Neither Williams nor Elamin has a computer, so they’re forced to go to the Labor Department office. But seniors’ job-searching skills are less sophisticated than younger workers’, says Van Horn. “Their use of social networking and Internet job-searching words is much lower,” he says.

Elamin uses the Internet regularly, however, to little avail. Wearing a three-piece brown suit with matching suede shoes and a trilby hat, and carrying a briefcase, he certainly looks ready for the office. “I am always prepared,” he says. “Always looking for an opportunity.”

He organizes his day with military discipline. “I wake up at 5:30 every morning,” he says. “I start out by researching jobs on the Internet, then I make face-to-face contacts with prospective employers. I spend the other part of my day researching about starting my own enterprise.”

Jabir Elamin notes the contact details of a prospective employer (Photo by Lucy Pawle)

Many unsuccessful job seekers end up living with family in multi-generational apartments. Elamin lived with his mother before she had a stroke. Megan Sergi, Single Stop’s uptown director, says this can put a further strain on seniors. “Sometimes their Social Security is the sole provider for paying the rent or supporting the grandchild,” she explains.

For some the strain proves too much. “I’ve seen people as old as 75 trying to find work,” Elamin says. “It’s outrageous and absurd. They shouldn’t have to be looking for it!”

Williams clearly feels the same. “Do you think I should be working at this age?” she simply asks, raising her eyebrow.

Older workers’ horizons are shorter, Van Horn adds, and “the financial and psychological blows they’re taking at that age are harder to recover from. When you’re in your 20s or 30s you’ve got your whole life still ahead.”

What Elamin misses most about his old life is the recreation he could afford. “I used to buy books every week and had quite an extensive library. I can’t do that now,” he says. “I used to love going to shows and concerts but I don’t do that any more either.”

Unsurprisingly, 35 percent of the city’s seniors say their single biggest concern is finances and employment, according to an AARP 2010 survey. Elamin isn’t destitute – he’s better off than many — but his fruitless search for work has had a clear emotional impact.

“It’s frustrating and it’s humiliating because I’ve worked all my life. When this happens and you’re not working it affects you, emotionally and spiritually,” he says. “Because you can’t function properly.”

With the unemployment rate uptown usually double the city’s average, the horizon looks grim for people like Elamin, lacking a college degree, or Williams, without even a high-school diploma.

“The unemployment rate by education is huge,” Baker says. He says their best bet is restaurants and retail, two expanding low-skilled sectors that offer just above the minimum wage. But, he acknowledges “it’s going to be very, very hard for those people.”

Nevertheless, Elamin feels optimistic. “I’m going to be in sales as an independent contractor,” he says confidently.

By setting out as an entrepreneur, he may be wise. The 1.5 million jobs being created a year only accommodate those entering the workforce. “It doesn’t help with the enormous backlog of those who are already unemployed,” Baker says.

Weeks earlier, Elamin was displaying the contents of his briefcase filled with bottles of perfume and stacks of make-up. “I’m thinking about the retail selling of cosmetics and selling them on the Internet,” he said. “I’m also thinking of starting a consulting business.”

Now he says he will probably join an existing “telecommunications energy service company” as an independent representative.   “I’ve got a meeting in December and I expect I’ll be working with them early in the new year,” he says.

But today, after an hour at the Labor Department, he gives up. He’s searched four websites for work without any luck and leaves before his allotted time is up. “It’s like searching for gold,” he says. But he’ll be back later this week, just in case.

Lucy Pawle

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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights. 
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

WORLD: The two pillars of the world's future

TOKYO, Japan / The Japan Times / Opinion / November 28, 2011

The two pillars of the world's future

By YUJI MIYAMOTO

Special to The Japan Times

Our world is about to be transformed. It is too early to tell what changes will come about. Yet, there is a premonition that the future relationship between America and China will set the course for the entire world.

America and China must relate in a manner that is not confrontational and destructive; their relationship must be one that contributes to the harmonious development of the community of mankind. No one will oppose such a conclusion. The question is, how do we realize this goal?

Rapid economic development has caused dramatic changes in Chinese society. China has finally caught up to the point that it now has America in its sight, re-emerging as a world power both in name and substance. The tremendous change that has taken place in China is a sign that its logic and action can no longer be contained within the framework envisioned by Deng Xiaoping, the master architect of modern China. The country has begun to wander in search for a new national image and identity.

Stories that have China taking calculated steps to rule the world based on some grand strategy do not reflect the reality faced by the country. China itself has been unable to reach a conclusion, much less decide on the focus of its search. The debate is on, but has yet to enter a stage of full-blown discussion.

When it comes to economic issues, we can safely say that China sees eye to eye with the rest of us. It is hard to imagine China destroying the existing global economic order from which it has gained maximum benefit. However, geopolitics is another issue altogether. Will mankind remain constrained by the fatalistic view that an economic power will ultimately become a military power, and that an emerging power will inevitably challenge the existing superpower?

I believe there is a way out. Both America and China must escape such fatalism, and I think they can. Once they clearly realize the responsibility and mission they have been entrusted with in the context of human history, the answer will come naturally.

Let us start with China. If it is seeking to create a global geopolitical order "with Chinese characteristics," it follows that China must denounce the hegemonistic approach. After all, hasn't China been the harshest critic of American hegemonistic behavior over the years?

The Way of Might and the Way of Right have their origins in the teachings of Mencius, which describes "one who claims righteousness through might" as a hegemon and "one who exercises right through virtue" as a true ruler (king). These words carry great weight in Chinese values. Any mention of the Way of Right is immediately met with comments that it is premised on the view of a world order that existed hundreds of years ago in East Asia, which pitted the Chinese against barbarians and formed the basis of tribute offering relationships.

This ancient worldview has no place in the present. Today, in a world where America and Europe, India, Russia and Japan have appeared in the same arena, it is impossible to envision China ruling the world as its center in any foreseeable future. Such a worldview is distinctively rooted in culture and civilization. It presupposes a superior culture and civilization on the part of China. While that may come true, it will be an infinitely time consuming process.

China cannot revert to a world order that is hundreds of years old. And that being so, it should come up with a new universal principle and contribute to the development of a global civilization. It is completely acceptable for China to present the Way of Right rooted in its classical thinking as a principle. That would indeed demonstrate the significance of China's rise to power in the history of civilization.

Let us now turn to America. It is my belief that America is destined to contribute to the advancement of global civilization. We should consider America not as an ordinary country but as a "smaller version of the world." Anyone who agrees with the principles championed by America can become its citizen, demonstrate their talents and contribute to social development. It was this capacity to accept and exploit diversity that propelled America into its leadership position in the world.

America is a "melting pot" where people with varied cultural backgrounds combine to create an American culture that has made a considerable impact on global civilization. And the proportion of non-Europeans continues to grow within the American population.

I have always considered America — a smaller version of our world — as a grand "testing ground" for the entire human population on earth. It is a testing ground where diverse peoples coexist, cooperate and create innovation. If this experiment succeeds in America, there is hope that mankind may succeed on a global scale. If it fails, mankind can expect no bright future. America exemplifies the future of mankind.

Such is the position held by America. China meanwhile has a unique civilization dating back thousands of years. These two countries must clearly recognize their grave responsibility to human history, and think and act accordingly. They must share the concept of co-evolution as described by Henry Kissinger — or the principle of learning from each other and evolving together. Japan and the rest of the world should actively participate in this process, because what we are seeking to create is a "global civilization" for the entire world.

Yuji Miyamoto, chairman of Miyamoto Institute of Asian Research, is Japan's former ambassador to China. This article originally appeared in the bulletin of the English-Speaking Union of Japan.

(C) The Japan Times

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