EngAGE Stories

In China: An urbanization project plans to move 250 million people from rural areas to cities. The impact on seniors will be profound. “Farmers are often unwilling to leave the land because of the lack of job opportunities in the new towns. Working in a factory is sometimes an option, but most jobs are far from the newly built towns. And even if farmers do get jobs in factories, most lose them when they hit age 45 or 50, since employers generally want younger, nimbler workers.  ‘For old people like us, there’s nothing to do anymore,’ said He Shifang, 45, a farmer from the city of Ankang in Shaanxi Province who was relocated from her family’s farm in the mountains. ‘Up in the mountains we worked all the time. We had pigs and chickens. Here we just sit around and people play mah-jongg.'” Read more here.

In the United Arab Emerite: “The ‘Brain Exercise Room’— the first-of-its-kind in the UAE — and a dedicated ‘Jalsa’ (open club area) aim to help residents and out-patients socialise and relax. . . . The ‘Brain Exercise Room’, costing Dh31,000 is a concept based on research around retaining mental capabilities and preventing the onset of age-related memory loss, Alzheimer’s and dementia. . . . . the stimulating environment enables residents of the home and visiting seniors to engage in puzzles, word games, chess, iPad games and other activities to promote healthy brain functionality.” Read more here.

In Canada: “It’s time to face the aging of Canada’s work force, experts say. From offering partial retirement plans and accommodating elderly employees to dealing with discrimination claims from both old and young workers, there is a growing need for policies and processes in the greying labour market. . . . The abolition of mandatory retirement, combined with lifestyle preferences, the baby-boom wave and the downturn in the economy means that many older workers choose – or are forced – to remain on the job at least part-time.” Read more here.

“While the first shared apartment for seniors appeared as a novelty in the mid-1990s, a recent boom means that almost 2,000 senior residents live in shared housing arrangements in Berlin alone, according to a Journal of Clinical Nursing study. And as the generation that witnessed the social revolutions of the 1960s grows older, the trend is gaining momentum.

“‘The image of aging is changing,” says Henning Scherf, a sprightly septuagenarian and former mayor of the northern German city of Bremen. “In the past it had to do with frailty and black clothes. Now there is everything, from traditional people to those who want to do things differently.'” Learn more here.