Report highlights difficulties in caring for elderly minorities

Date: 22/05/03

By Karen Carstens

IT IS common knowledge that ageing populations present a host of problems for policymakers across Europe, but a new study seeks to highlight the hitherto little-discussed issues surrounding one often overlooked group in this demographic equation - minorities.

The EU-funded work, Minority Elderly Care in Europe, is the result of a three-year study involving 27 groups in ten countries. The authors examined the situation in France, Germany, the UK, Spain, the Netherlands, Finland, Hungary, Switzerland, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia, focusing on health and social care as well as welfare and housing provision.

"This unprecedented research into the position of minority groups confirms that policymakers have yet to wake up to the realities of an ageing minority ethnic population," said Naina Patel, director of the Leeds-based Policy Research Institute on Ageing and Ethnicity, which conducted the study.

"Given the impending EU legislation on age discrimination, these findings must be incorporated in future policy decisions," she added.

MEP Stephen Hughes said the study "brings to light a set of circumstances which have so far remained largely hidden from policymakers.

"The challenges it exposes are not theoretical - they are very real and almost upon us. It is a wake-up call for policymakers in all EU institutions."

An EU-funded work, Minority Elderly Care in Europe, has highlighted the difficulties of caring for an ageing minority ethnic population.