On the political use of old age and the lack of diagnosis

A few years ago, after graduating in Sociology, I got a job offer from a job portal to be a salsa teacher. It's not that they paid badly, the job was in the city where I lived, it could even be an interesting job. The only problem is that, being proud arrhythmic in most of my movements, I don't dance salsa, so I could teach it less. I don't know which person or algorithm decided that work fit my profile. Well, sometimes it's the same with political measures: they don't fit the needs or demands of the audience they're aimed at.

At election time, older people become a kind of target audience. We have already looked at how older people make up a significant percentage of the population (we talk about this here and here): no less than 19%. This percentage is even more important if we only consider the population that can potentially vote. The census of Spanish residents with the right to vote among Spanish residents in Spain on 1 October 2019 was 34,765,197 people and 2,124,352 Spaniards residing abroad (INE data). Moreover, older people seem more inclined to go and vote. 

All this makes older people potential voters. The over-65s, of whom few policies are agreed in the period between elections (which in Spain lately is short, wow) become a precious group when the elections are approaching, or when it is necessary to justify how much the governments (national, autonomous, local) intervene in social matters. 

The reflection implied by this post is marked by a news that never ceases to amaze me about the lowering of the transport season ticket in the Community of Madrid for the over 65s. Currently (prices can be consulted here) the "third age" season ticket (ay, that name...What is the first age? And the second?) are 12.30€ and next year will fall to 9.30€. The president of the Community of Madrid points out that it will be free in a few years. How does this improve the quality of life of the elderly?

One might think that this saving of three eurazos a month is going to have a great impact on the household economies of the elderly, but the truth is that I am reluctant to think about it. Rather, I understand that this type of measure produces a comparative disdain and encourages the "intergenerational struggle". Yes, in this case I believe that the reduction would be more appropriate in other age groups that use transport more frequently, but, furthermore, I believe that older people have more urgent needs and have a greater potential impact than a reduction of EUR 3 in the transport season ticket. I am not making this statement lightly: my research topic has always been about vulnerability, which has different facets (it is a multivariate, complex and urgent reality) and different manifestations. The reduction of 3 euros in the transport season ticket does not seem to me to solve any of them. In fact, it seems to me that it forms part of a very reductionist understanding of old age, in which the idea of "bread and circus" is used to silence much more powerful demands. I am not even going to refer to the scant attention paid to the march of two columns of pensioners who marched from Rota and Bilbao to Madrid demanding decent pensions (oh yes, I did mention it). With political exceptions (they were received by a political party) but surprisingly with very little press attention. It was a praiseworthy feat, but it did not have the echo it deserved. One could argue the level of responsibility: the central government has a series of competences and the autonomous government has others, so I mix churras with merinas. All right. Let's think then about the measures that can be taken from the local and autonomous dimension and how we can think about measures that benefit the group of elderly people. 

For example, and if we want to return to the question of transport, we could think of the question of accessibility: are all the metro stations accessible for people with reduced mobility? and those of the train? what about the buses? are all the neighbourhoods of Madrid equally well communicated? We could take the leap and analyse the forms of transport in other areas of the Community of Madrid. For example, do elderly people who live in municipalities in zone C1 have sufficient transport? Generally speaking, what prevents older people from using public transport is not its price but its availability and accessibility problems. Let us remember that they do not go alone on the bus that connects with the city of Madrid or with the next town, but that an improvement in transport or accessibility would potentially benefit numerous users of all ages. 

We can point to other measures beyond public transport, measures that seem to me to be more urgent. Take the example of Paulino, who is an 89-year-old man who lives in Vallecas (the neighbourhood where I grew up and where I lived until I moved to the United States). Paulino lives in a second without an elevator (equivalent in height to a third) with steep stairs. Paulino, although very fit for his age, finds it increasingly difficult to go up and down the stairs, so there are days when he feels tired and does not go down the street. Not only him, but all the neighbours of his portal would benefit enormously from some aids to the rehabilitation and the installation of elevator in the portal. It is true that in the past they existed, that they exist from time to time, but precisely because I worked three years in a project related to Areas of Integral Rehabilitation (ARI) and in areas of rehabilitation of historical center (ARCH) I know that: a) the aids do not reach everybody; b) the aids are not sufficient for numerous economies, among them, those of numerous elderly people and; c) They arrive late, sometimes so late that they make it difficult for numerous people to access. On this subject I also spoke extensively in my thesis, so we can review these difficulties and limitations another day. 

We could refer to other measures that Paulino would need, or that his neighbour across the street would need, such as an economic help to change his bathtub for a shower, for example. Paulino has the minimum pension and saves as much as he can, but a reform escapes from his economy. As I have been in Paulino's house, I can say that his house needs some other reform, some urgent and others that are not urgent but that would improve his life a lot. But certain disbursements may be unfeasible in low economies. 

But we are going to be even more ambitious and we are going to review another measure that would benefit more people. We could say that some aid to change the bathtub would only benefit Paulino's home (as if that were not enough), but we are going to widen our gaze. Let us think of a measure that improves Paulino's quality of life and that of other beneficiaries of the Act on the Promotion of Personal Autonomy and Care for Persons in a Situation of Dependency. What is more, a measure that has positive effects not only on the plaintiffs but also on the workers themselves. In other words, I am not only referring to the fact that Paulino needs more hours than he has been granted (which would mean hiring more people), but it would be wonderful, but wonderful, if the lady who comes to his house had good working conditions. And for good working conditions I am not even going to go so crazy as to refer to a salary increase (deserved, necessary) but I am going to refer to other aspects of this work that could be improved. Let us think of Asun, who, although she is not the name of the person who works in Paulino's house, is a real lady who works in home care in the same community, even in the same neighbourhood, in which Paulino lives. When Asun (who lived in one of those villages with little transport but who went every day to work in the city of Madrid) showed me her quadrant, I couldn't believe it: "With these schedules, how do you get from one house to another? Asun's timetables were impossible. No, the houses are not in the same building, this is normal. But sometimes the houses are far away from each other, without this implying an additional calculation of the time it takes to leave one house and arrive at the next. This not only harms Paulino and the next person in Asun's quadrant, but also puts enormous stress on the workers, who have a hard job (also emotionally hard) that is socially unacknowledged and who also have to run from one house to another. 

These are just examples, real examples that I have collected in these years of research, but which certainly deserve reflection by governments, especially if we want to allocate measures to old age. We can talk about each other's costs (which I also have arguments for) but what I am calling for here is a diagnosis of the needs that occur in old age. An old age that is not heterogeneous and in which there are unresolved needs. Policies that stop reifying old age with tremendous calculation errors, measures that make noise to disguise the real needs that exist and that diminish the quality of life of so many, so many elderly people. And those around them.