The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) tracks more than 230 performance indicators to identify progress in social, economic and environmental sustainability across the world, but few mentions older people. Although several indicators document progress in the population subgroup, no indicators are specifically targeted at the elderly.
In an inspired class on sustainability indicators, written by Alexander de Sherbinin, director of the Center for Integrated Geoscience Information Network at Columbia Climate School and Zachary A. Wendling, director of research at the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, who co-wrote the public’s environmental performance index – I learned how to analyze existing Index index and build my own. The Planetary Index of Aging (API) is the ultimate in these efforts.
First, I think it is worth questioning why older people are not staple foods in the SDGs. Perhaps an aging society is not a global challenge? After all, the world’s population continues to climb up relentlessly, and it is expected to reach its peak only until the mid-2080s. However, if we dig deeper, we will find that the age group 65 and older has the fastest growth rate. Developing countries (concentrated population growth) are under enormous pressure when facing an unprecedented double burden. Because they are faster than developed countries in the early developmental stages, they are unable to follow the script that focuses on economic development for the first time and then strengthen the health care system to manage chronic diseases in older age.
Although several institutions have constructed aging index, they largely reflect the view of decision makers. Among the UN Economic Commission for Europe’s positive aging index, the employment rate variable of the Economic Commission for Europe is most obvious. Who decided to work from 70-74? When I create the basic framework of the API, I choose to reflect what the older people really want. A global survey of senior citizens concluded: “Have energy, happiness, have good senses and get rid of pain.” Broadly speaking, they care about happiness and physical health. Therefore, the first component of the API tracks well-being through self-reported well-being and healthy life expectancy.
Next, I think this is crucial to achieving these goals. For welfare, economic security can be said to be the most important facilitator. This becomes two components of the API. Instead of using employment rates in old age, I chose pension coverage and elderly poverty to better capture choose. We may not agree with retirement – ideal age, but we can agree that having enough money is generally needed. Economic security is closely related to psychological security, for example, people may continue to move beyond retirement work for social interaction and meaning; therefore, I also include self-reported social support and a sense of productivity.
“Perhaps the aging society is not a global challenge? After all, the world’s population continues to climb up relentlessly and is expected to peak only in the mid-2080s. But if we dig deeper, we will find that the growth rate is fastest in the age group 65 and older.”
Finally, the three APIs of the components draw attention to the environment, although the environment is a lot of indexes, even though it is at the heart of well-being. In the study of global burden of disease, the deaths caused by pollution are “much greater than those of war, terrorism, malaria, HIV, tuberculosis, drugs and alcohol.” Furthermore, the impact of this environment is disproportionately borne by older people who are more susceptible to the impact. However, between governments and international organizations, the environment is often not optimized, arguably because it is difficult to measure. I used variables of air pollution, lead exposure, and years of loss to extreme weather events.
After collecting the measures for these criteria, I normalized the values of my nine variables to a common scale (0-1) to allow comparison. For each country, we averaged 9 variable scores to get the final index score (0-1). Then rank the countries based on this final score.
In 140 countries, the top 20 are dominated by Nordic and Western Europe. The API appears to reflect the country’s global economic rankings (they are highly correlated with GDP per capita), which is expected because economic resources help promote health care and social welfare systems, thereby increasing well-being, security and environmental resilience. That is, I tested the various explanatory factors outlined in previous surveys and found stronger correlations at all income levels, driven by gender inequality and general health coverage.
Women accumulate burdens throughout their lives, such as experiencing workplace discrimination and bearing the brunt, which can manifest as widespread gaps in older adults. One solution to consider is to strengthen women’s social strength, as India’s experiment in retaining village council seats for women in the 1990s could lead to structural investment in women’s needs. Economist and philosopher Amartya Sen, who once advocated for human development, showed that a country does not need to wait for economic prosperity before improving upstream healthcare and educational opportunities. Countries have achieved much less.
Ultimately, I hope the API will launch the discussion in the aging challenge: we should prioritize successful aging aspects and what potential solutions we can offer?
Ng Kah Long is a graduate student in the quantitative methodology of Columbia University’s Social Science Program. His research interests are to bridge the social science disciplines to solve interesting problems. He is currently a research assistant at the Columbia Postal School of Public Health.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official status of the Columbia Climate School, the Institute of Earth, or Columbia University.
