Perspective Chapter: Crisis of Aging, Livelihood and Intergenerational Relations – The Political Economy of Ageing in Fiji

Abstract

A political economy perspective provides a better understanding of aging in Fiji and the challenges of care and threats of poverty. Traditional Inter-generational family and household have remained enduring as primary care givers for older persons from the colonial period when services were limited. It continues to do within contemporary structure of work with retirement at, recently 55, but now 60, and limited coverage from a National Provident Fund. There’s however pressure on the inter-generational household from the economy while older people seek to work. State targeted social protection schemes have been established to assist those in need.

1. Introduction

All over the world people are living longer, longer into 60 years and over. This is the aging of the world population. This phenomenon is referred to as ‘population aging.’ And the age 60 and above has been generally accepted as a marker for old age thus constructing a social demographic identity for a population in a society. With increasing analytical work, a differentiation is sometimes made between the young, the old and the oldest old. Population aging is now recognized as an important development issue with implications for national productivity and a pressing need to design evidence informed policies to respond to the well-being and caring for older people. Efforts to understand aging and the situation of older people in society continues to engage academic interests leading to theories of aging and life situation for older people. The chapter engages with prevailing understandings of aging with a view to providing an alternative perspective which focuses on socio-economic context and change with a focus on the critical role of, and pressure on, the intergenerational family and relations in population aging.

Two global processes, over the past 100 years or so, characterize the phenomenon of population aging described above. Both denote a qualitative change in important aspect of our lives in the world. These are referred to as the ‘Epidemiological Transition’ and the ‘Demographic Transition.’ The former refers broadly to qualitative changes in the understanding of health, illness and disease and the radical advances in scientific knowledge and its application to disease prevention, health care and health care delivery; and more recently health promotion as distinct from public health. As a consequence, many of the earlier burdensome infectious diseases have either been eliminated or effective prevention and care methods have been found and applied through immunization. The burden of disease, as the prevalence, incidence and threat of disease, at particular times, have been made lighter. The outcome is longevity which, in turn, has produced changes in the structure of population which is referred to as the “Demographic Transition.” Put simply it is a process in which a society moves from a situation of high fertility rates and mortality to low fertility rate and mortality. Variation of these changes are observable in both countries of the global north and global south. In both life expectancy has risen and continues to rise. As far back as 1993, Kinsella and Taeuber ([1], p. 39) estimated that the global elderly population increases by about 800,000 each month. Historically Europe had the first experience with these transitions with the result that in the contemporary world it also has the highest percentage of population 60 years and above. And it is projected that by 2050 about 34% of its population will be over 60 years. Other areas of the world followed suite with North America, Latin America the Caribbean, Asia and Oceania in tow, all with population aging over 20% [2]. Africa came into the transitions rather late and currently has an average aging population at around 5% with projections that this will double by 2050.

A significant increase is notable in the past 30 year as global population 60 years and above rose from 8.5% to 12.3% between 1980 and 2015 with a projection of another significant increase up to 21.5% by the year 2050 [2]. The socio-economic implications of this demographic phenomenon is enormous, globally, especially as the aged population continues to impact on resources for their care, and livelihood becomes a challenge. This has also, together with factors, created a category of employment now referred to as the care economy [3]. Evidence of economic challenges for the aging population, especially in the global south, have been widespread and underlines the call for relevant policy initiatives to stem the tide of potential crisis of population aging.

Toward the end of the last century, The World Bank, in recognition of the potential crisis of livelihood and poverty including for many older people in the developing countries, commissioned a study on ‘Averting the Old Age Crisis’ [4]. The Bank cautioned on this demographic phenomenon and its potential consequences for livelihood and called for policies to avert the crisis [4]. Within the same period the World Health Organization underscored the health and poverty issues related to aging and called for the ‘inclusion of poverty in health programmes for aging women [5]. This call is also in consonance with both the Sustainable Development Goal 1 and 5 and its preceding Millennium Development Goals.

This chapter critically explores issues relating to the provision of support and care of older people in Fiji. It is informed by over 30 years of research on population aging in Fiji and the South Pacific.

It argues that there is an emerging crisis of livelihood and care for population aging in Fiji leading to significant changes in access to means of livelihood at old age. Against this emerging situation the key research questions for this chapter include (i) whether aging with poverty is a natural state of affairs, (ii) what is the role of socio-economic changes, and some of its characteristics in structuring the aging process, and (iii) how have these contributed to the emerging poverty in aging in Fiji. other words, it is not a natural state of affairs to grow old and poor but a socio-economically determined aging context underlines the crisis of poverty and this relates to the, nature, structure and the constitution of modern work including issues of wages, profit, and retirement age including retirement benefits and a category of work defined as ‘economically active’ in contrast to unpaid work.

Efforts to address and stem the crisis would require policy options that will respond to the specificity Fiji’s economic situation and prevailing support structures. With respect to Asia, for example, Sang-Hyop [6] observed the changing support systems that include intergenerational pool of resources. He observed that, that ‘…the elderly in in Asia are relying less on their families than they did in the past. The question is what strategy should be used to compensate for the decline in this traditional source of old age support: developing extensive social welfare systems as in Europe and parts of Latin America or relying more on accumulating personal assets as in the Philippines, Thailand and the US.’ In my own work, much earlier, I have wondered whether policy options derived from the socio-economic formations of the global north are appropriate for resolving welfare issues, in this case for the elderly, in a hybrid economies of the global south [7]. For example, what are the implications of, or the value of, Provident Funds for old age livelihood in an economy with enduring high unemployment, still higher unemployment rates for women, low labour force participation rates, large subsistence sector and unpaid work, poverty rates at around 25%, and retirement age at 55 and now (about 2 months ago) increased to 60.

2. Methodology

The methodology used for this chapter includes primarily access to, and critical use of, a mix of quantitative and qualitative secondary data. The latter from documents and journal publications including my own as well as observation and notes from in-depth interviews from an ongoing research on care work. The former are from existing census and survey data, statistical reports from government and other sources including in journal articles. The historical nature of the data is relevant and sufficient in responding to the key questions as they provide a picture and understanding of changing socio-economic situation and context of the country and its impact of aging as a life situation. The methodological exercise entailed an extensive literature review on population aging generally and, specifically on Fiji, with a critical eye on aspects of change and determinants of change within the lines of disaggregated social, demographic and economic statistical data over a span of more than 20 years. Disaggregated data with socio-economic variables provide relevant sources of data on socio-economic change. These together provide rich sources for historical analysis of change and allow an understanding of changing socio economic conditions as, primarily, social processes with impacts on categories of people, including intergenerational families, within a population.

3. Understanding aging and society: social theory and population aging

The analytical approach in this paper is framed through a political economy perspective which is approach contrary to the individual centered approaches. It holds the contemporary crisis of aging and poverty in Fiji (and countries of the global south) as the consequences of socio-economic transformation and not a natural condition of growing old. It is framed, theoretically, through the acceptance of colonization as an imperialist project and a neo-Marxist analysis of the transformation of pre-capitalist societies in the nineteenth century under the auspices of a colonial state as the representative of the capitalist imperial state. A racialized structure of welfare and practice, described elsewhere as a ‘Colonial welfare regime’ was embedded in the colonial administration as part of imperial welfare development policy and practice [8]. This excluded the colonized as beneficiaries of social services that address social and life risks within the colonial capitalist economy. Thus, in lieu of state services, the colonized were left to the welfare and care values of their traditional institutions of family, kin and intergenerational households which, simultaneously, the colonial capitalist economy undermined as it pressed on them for labour, taxes or both, land appropriation, and introduction of basic consumer items. Increasingly poverty in these households emerged as able-bodied men entered the emerging labour force as ‘economically active’ persons and received low wages. The framework thus emphasizes the historical transformation of society, and the emergence of the hybrid social structures and institutions that make up part, and in some situations the primary part, of the welfare mix in many of the countries of the global south where ‘… majority of older people continue to work into very old age, often despite chronic and disabling illness…Older people are concentrated in rural areas but they are also small traders, traditional healers, providers of domestic help and involved in countless of other pursuits’ [9]. And within households of intergenerational (sometimes three generations) relations care of the old remained (and continues to be) the task of increasing numbers of unpaid workers, mostly women and girls [10]. This exclusion contributed significantly to the emergence of poverty including of older people in the colonies [11] by the time of independence and have continued as a consequence of development challenges. These challenges include, for many countries of the global south, primary resource based economies with limited employment especially of women, structural adjustments programmes which limit and or curtail social services, increasing debt and downward spirals of GDP leading to weak social protection systems to cater for the growing aging population [12]. The consequences have been an increasing number of elderly people not recorded as economically active but working in informal settings for survival [9] including sometimes as unpaid carers.

This approach differs from other prevailing theories of aging in the social sciences. These include the disengagement, activity and the developmental cycle theories. These have emerged largely within the global north socio-economic formations especially Western Europe and North America. And informed by western orientations in understanding and explanations which tend to focus on the individual and the overarching dominance of formal systems of work and retirement. A structure work which annually withdraws (mandatorily or voluntarily) a cohort of men and women over 60 from active participation in the economy the current changes notwithstanding. This system of work has socially constructed a ‘population at retirement’ based on age and not on capacity to work, and determined by formal, institutional, and policy criteria informed by actuarial science. This is accompanied by state ‘Welfare regimes’ [13] which provide programmes of support including unemployment insurance and welfare payments. We briefly interrogate some of these theories.

The disengagement theory of the aging is particularly appropriate to this institutional (mandatory) retirement process. The theory assumes that both the individual and the society are at an advantage when the aged person is excluded from work to enjoy his/her retirement, whichever way he or she wishes. It is indeed of no concern to employers whether the retiree has adequate resources or not. It is assumed that in the situation of lack of resources assistance will be forthcoming from the benevolence of the state through a pillar in its ‘Welfare regime.’ In the end this becomes an individualistic and laissez-faire approach to social policy. When arguments are made in respect of retirees and retention of older workers the answer has remained either that they have to create openings for younger people (the fetishism of youth) or that it is the individual’s responsibility to save enough for his/her later years. Diametrically opposed to this is the activity paradigm, supported usually by social libertarians. This expresses, and prescribes, the need for elderly people to be active in their old age, through participation in a miscellany of outdoor activities, so that they can mix and interact with each other. The resources available for the elderly person is taken for granted and not made part of the explanatory framework. Each of these perspectives, in spite of their differences, tends to identify the individual older person as the main unit of analysis and emphasizes, therefore, adjustment or adaptation as the important aspect of the aging experience. Another approach, that emphasizes interaction, focuses on three factors as important in the aging experience. These are (i) the environment, (ii) the person, and (iii) their encounters ([14], pp. 1–25). Together, they suggest an interaction context within which aging is experienced through significant relationships with others in the social environment. The emphasis is on social interaction as a meaningful and rewarding activity. It nevertheless remains individualistic and directs attention, again, on to the individual. Another individualistic approach to gerontological thinking is provided through the currently popular biomedical theories. These tend to individualize and psycho-medicalize aging through their emphasis which decline with age ([14], pp. 1–25).

The weaknesses of these individual approaches to social theorizing of the aged have been shown through other forms of analysis which adopt the social as the unit of analysis. This has dominated most of the writings by social gerontologist who study the relationship between older people and society, particularly such structures as the family, community, and the economy [15]. However, social gerontologists have always examined these mainly in terms of role-loss through age, and therefore unable to delink it completely from the trappings of the individualistic paradigms. These are the dominant paradigms of aging which have emerged from Western Europe, USA, North America and Australia.

The socio-economic and historical circumstances of aging in these societies are different from those of the developing countries. There are therefore different patterns of the aging experience and processes. Family, education, occupation, work, income, healthcare and recreational activities are not identical. The countries of the global south demonstrate hybrids of institutional and structural patterns different from those of the global north [16]. It is a characteristic of these hybrid socio-economic formations that modified and modifying forms of the traditional family, village and community are maintained and continue to provide services including the reproduction of next generation of able-bodied persons. Most importantly they also contribute significantly to what can be described as the ‘welfare mix’ through absorption and provision of livelihood for the sick, the disabled, the aged, the unemployed and the unemployable with support from intergenerational families and kin.

4. Political economy of Fiji: economy and society

Fiji is a small island state in the South Pacific of about 18.3 kilometers and covering 300 islands. The population comprises of majority indigenous or I’taukei and Indo-Fijians of about 57% and 37% respectively [17] and other minor ethnic categories. Current total population is 898,315 [17] with an enduring tradition and practice of extended and intergenerational family relations which provides for care and responds to social and individual crisis. Variations of this also exists within the Indo-Fijian community. The roots of the practice within I’taukei and its enduring nature of reciprocity and solidarity have been articulated in the works of Ratuva [18] and Koya-Vaka’uta [19].

Tourism holds a dominant place in the national economy and provides direct and indirect employment to over 100, 000 people [17] and commands an almost 71% share of GDP. Added to a dynamic tourism sector are, commercial agriculture, fisheries, hardwood, gold mining and remittances, with the latter providing an average of 300 million dollars a year. Manufacturing continues to remain on a small scale in areas such as footwear, garments and textile and more recently bottled water and precious stones, spirits, fish and vegetables [17] per capita income was at US$5678.

Unemployment continues to be high, even before COVID-19, at about 6.2% with a worrying higher unemployment at 18.2% of population 15–24 age category [20] and a correspondingly high Informal employment at 60% and varies between male and female at 57 and 65% respectively [17]. There is an endemic poverty in the country, with the current poverty rate at 25% [17] and it is exacerbated by low and increasingly stagnant (between 2009 and 2016) wages, 20% devaluation of the Fiji dollar in 2009 and consequent 38% rise in basic food items and a fluctuating (between 17 and 12%) value added tax. Extensive government borrowing between 2006 and 2020, to cushion the shocks in the economy produced a crushing debt burden of 90% of GDP as government seeks additional policy changes in social protection mechanisms to respond to the crisis of poverty [21].

Fiji was absorbed into the structure of British imperial economy in 1874 and administered through the agency of a colonial state which brokered indentured labour from India, with 5 year variable contracts, from 1879 to 1916 [8] to establish plantation sugar and copra production. A complicit Colonial State underwrote low wages and resisted efforts by indentured labourers, cane workers and later worker associations for increased wages and welfare provisions [22]). To “relieve employers of the burden of an indefinite expense” [8] the Colonial State established the Indian Immigration Introduction Fund, Indian Immigration Return-passage Fund, Destitute Indian Fund (not to be confused with the later Destitute Allowance), and Polynesian Immigration Fund [8] with the key expatriate economic enterprises as contributors and beneficiaries. An Ordinance of 1885 provided “for the Care and Maintenance of Orphan Indian Immigrants” [8]. It left the care of the old to traditional institutions of family and kin.

With a multiplicity of Regulations bundled into what was called Native Policy and backed by imperial instruments of ‘Pacification’ [23] indigenous Fijians were integrated into the new economy as suppliers of land, payers of taxes in kind, and, with the development of the colonial economy, labour and a cadre of indigenous salariat [8]. A structure of colonial state governmentality a la Foucault was exercised through a tripod of administrative practices. These included census, racial categorization, birth and death registrations and disease notification [24]. A dossier on location and movement of indentured labourers and, Fijians particularly, the designation, documentation and naming of their villages and land owning groups [25] ensured colonial domination.

In the labour market, Fijian were paid low wages with the assumption that they have access to communal life and land as the provider of security [8]. And Fijian resistance to wage labour meant living within traditional family context with subsistence agriculture and fishing as sources of livelihood. Aging parents were then maintained and cared for within this traditional extended family and community structures [26]. For indentured labourers wages remained low and at level of ‘Temple ration.’ This meant poverty and starvation [27]. These practices slowly began to yield a category of poor within Fiji’s society and an emerging category of old and destitute indentured workers. In lieu of their care by the colonial state they were supposed to be supported, by their kin, from proceeds from their vegetable gardens [27]. Thus the policies of the colonial state, as early as this period, exploited non capitalist institutions, including especially intergenerational families and relations, into a hybrid of an emerging economy. Hence the references to ‘Colonial Capitalism’ [28]. Formal response to population aging within the colonial economy was absorbed into what I have described elsewhere as “Colonial welfare regime” [8]. It was characterized, primarily, by a ‘Destitute Allowance,’ pension payments for expatriate officers in the colonial service and the other expatriate economic enterprises, and a residential home (described as indoor relief) for the aging, frailed and sickly indentured labourers, and was administered initially by Commissioners of Labour and later by a Department of Social Welfare [8]. However, this assistance for older people was not a universalized coverage. It was racialized and targeted to only aging indentured labourers with no visible means of support. It excluded both aging indigenous Fijians and other aging indentured labourers with family. For the former the burden of care was placed on their traditional family and kin and households and the latter care was supposed to come from family proceeds from their vegetable gardens [8, 27]. Later, with further changes in the economy including demands for labour and low wages poverty emerged in the towns and within indigenous Fijian households and communities [29]. And much later the Destitute Allowance and the Residential Homes were de-racialized and indigenous Fijians and others were included [8]. These provided the foundations for welfare and care (or recently social protection) of the aging population till the latter part of the twentieth century in Fiji.

5. Population aging: change and projections

Fiji, like other countries experienced its own Demographic transition and has benefitted from the global epidemiological revolutions leading to increases in life expectancy in the twentieth century and Population aging continues to be part of the demographic changes in Fiji. From about 5% in the early 1980’s the current population of older people is about 7.5% or 73,900 of the total population [17] and projected to increase to 17% in 2050. Household sizes in Fiji are large (with rural and urban differences) and more than likely of intergenerational residents including older people and prone to poverty [17]. Household and income data shows that around about 27% of older people live in poverty (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Fiji population pyramid (Source: Fiji Bureau of Statistics [30]).

A little over 53% of older people reside in the rural areas. There is an impact of the graying of the population on the labour force participation. In 1996 for example population 60 years and over was 7.9% of the population and made up 5.7% of the labour force. By 2007 this has increased to 10% of the population and 6.2% of the labour force but with a low labour force participation rate at 30% [17]. Life expectancy as of 2013 figures is 67.6 and 69.9 for males and females respectively. There have been developments in areas such as health and sanitation and increasing number of the population continues to have access to safe water and sanitation [31]. As of 2013, 87.2% of the population and 96.3% have access to sanitation and water respectively. The country continues to witness rapid urbanization with, currently, 60% of the national population residing in cities and towns and a sprawling squatter settlement within and on the fringes of the city and major towns (Table 1).

Group	2020	2010	2020	2030	2040	2050
	Population (thousands)
Male	22	31	47	59	69	81
Female	23	36	54	73	88	102
Total	45	67	101	132	157	183
Percentage of total population
Male	5.2	7.4	10.1	12.7	14.7	17.5
Female	6.1	8.4	12.1	15.9	18.9	22.3
Total	5.7	7.9	11.1	14.3	16.8	19.9

Table 1.

Projections on population aged 60+ in Fiji, 2000–2050.

Source: Ministry of Social Welfare, Fiji [32].

There is a notable feminization of population aging in Fiji as the sex ratio show a decreasing trend from 90.9 in 2000 and expected to be 81.6 in 2025 (see Table 2). As per available data the female component of population 60 years and over was 52.4% in 2000 and expected to increase to 55.1 in 2025. And with the higher life expectancy of women there are currently, more widows in the aging population that widowers [32].

Indicator	2000	2025	2050
Sex ratio of the 60 and over population	90.9	81.6	87.3
Proportion of the 60 and over population that is female	52.4	55.1	53.4

Table 2.

Feminization of older population in Fiji, 2000–2050.

Source: Ministry of Social Welfare, Fiji [32].

Official retirement age was at 55 (and just now changed to 60) mainly for public sector workers but slowly being adopted elsewhere. Difficulties in post-retirement employment, especially in urban areas, is the main challenge for the younger elderly at pension [33, 34] and poses a risk to livelihood at old age. It is estimated that about 70% of the population age 60 and over are not covered by any formal pension scheme [34]. Policy for averting a pending crisis is lacking, though now in consideration, especially in the light of research evidence that show the tendency for aging with poverty in developing countries [35]. Current means of sustaining livelihood at old age, in Fiji, can be placed into five categories. First through continuing work by older people and especially those in semi-subsistence living in rural areas [34, 36, 37], second continuing formal employment and informal self-employed work, third access to a targeted state social pension, fourth the unfunded National Provident Fund and fifth a combination of elements of some of these including remittances in cash and kind. Based on formal employment, and mainly for public sector workers from its inception, women are underrepresented in this category of recipients of FNPF provident payments [8, 34]. The existing ‘Welfare regime’ in Fiji, only a variation of the colonial Welfare regime, provides a targeted social pension for older people In coverage it provides for a total of 54,200 almost 50% of the aging population (see below, Section 9).

6. Aging in Fiji: issues and challenges in intergenerational relationships

The key to ensuring livelihood at old age is, primarily, by access to, and satisfaction of, basic needs especially of health and wellbeing. Research on livelihood at old age has underlined the hardships faced by older people, generally, as well as the ‘difficulties for some families to provide care and support for older people’ [9, 36]. Elsewhere I have described the lack of means to maintain basic livelihood at old age as constituting ‘social disability’ [38]. Research on aging and the elderly in Fiji undertaken between 1984 and 1993 [36, 38, 39, 40] and more recently [34] have all underlined the health and livelihood needs of the elderly resulting from disabilities or chronic diseases. These studies affirm the findings of others that have come to the same conclusions [41]. In Fiji the national disease burden is heavily weighted by non-communicable diseases and the prevalence of risk factors such as smoking, alcohol use and over-nutrition. In 2003 the World Health Organization noted that such practices do have later ‘mortality and morbidly effects on older people’ [42]. Health conditions at old age in Fiji include diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and cerebra-vascular diseases [34]. And there has been steady increase in Diabetes (T2DM) prevalence in population 60–64 over the past two decades from 17% in 1980 to 36.8 in 2011. Obesity and cardiovascular diseases have also recorded similar increase [43]. As noted recently in a study on Fiji [34] ‘…the older population is more likely to be sick, infirm or disabled than … middle aged’ and the typical elderly ‘is the one who is not mobile and has some form of disability or other serious medical ailments that need constant medical attention and health care’ [34]. Inevitably there are gender differences as was found by Panapasa and Maharaj [39, 40].

7. Living arrangements: intergenerational households and aging

Traditional family structures and living arrangements in Fiji were intergenerational as extended families occupied households within communities (see Table 3). The earliest cross national survey on aging in Fiji [44] showed only 2% of the aging population lived alone compared to and 72% who lived with four or more other people. By two decades later, in 2013 [34] 60% of population 60 years and above live with three 4 or more people. And this varies with gender and ethnicity [34]. The same research also found that intergenerational living arrangements is common among the older people with about 30% and 20% living in two and three and generational households respectively with variations between urban and rural residents. Sharing of resources across generations was described earlier as a form of ‘Reciprocal subsidization’ [16], a situation where older people contribute effectively including sometimes mortgaged and mortgage free homes with children and their families(to the intergenerational household. This intergenerational context provides the situational for interaction, activity and in villages particularly, community involvement. And these as the 1984 data noted also provide ‘…Respect and care of older persons as an abiding norm of all communities…’ [34]. With increasing economic change and demands there has been pressures on these structures of care. Seniloli and Tawake [36] observed that, there is crisis within and with intergenerational care and support as resources for caring are usually not at par with the desire to care and, that decreasing of family size is also slowly contributing to shrinking family resources for care [34, 36]. The decreasing family size is the consequence of a combination of migration for work within and increasingly outside Fiji as the economy contracts and employment opportunities shrink and are exacerbated by the effects of climate change [12].

		Urban	Rural
Marital status	Currently married	35.6	32.6
	Ever married & single	14.8	16.9
Living arrangements	Living alone	14.8	18.7
	Living with others	35.6	30.9
Number of children	0–3	33.2	26.9
	4–6	16.1	16.8
	>6	4.7	2.4

Table 3.

Living arrangements of older population in percentages.

Source: Seniloli and Tawake [36].

These economic challenges rightfully raise concerns with livelihood and aging in Fiji and are exacerbated by the enduring problem of poverty. The National Poverty Survey in 2009 gave an incidence of poverty as 35% in 2003 and 31% in 2008. By 2021 it has dropped only by a few points to 29.9% which ‘means approximately 258,053 of the national population live in poverty with almost identical percentage of p[people over 65 years living in poverty [17].

8. Older people in search of livelihood: population aging and work

Retirement as was noted by an author on Fiji’s aging and work context ‘has become a default definition of the elderly’ [45]. And indeed with consequences for older people including even those educated, with skills and willing to work. Challenges relating to family and individual economic resources for a decent life at old age, together with, for some, health and skills, have compelled older people to continue to work after retirement and at age 60 and over. Within the national economic structure and the labour market the increasing unemployment including, especially, of a bulging youth population continue to inform the discourse on retirement. Retirement age has continued to fluctuate within Fiji’s political economy from an earlier 55 years, then to 60 then back to 55 and more recently increased to 60, yet again. That retirement is not associated with ability and capacity in many jobs has been recognized and debated. Specifically, retirement relates to calculations for Retirement/Provident fund payments and not the ability to work. Writing on aging and work in developing countries Devaney ([46]:172ff) noted the relationship between the poverty (the economy) at old age and the need for income. It is indeed the same economy that ‘arbitrary’ pegs exclusion from paid employment on the basis of age. Thus aging in Fiji has also been accompanied by, for some, the compulsion and willingness to work both for survival and in some cases to support the intergenerational household [45, 46, 47, 48]. Available data show older people working in different sectors including self-employment with those aged between ‘65–74 engaged in elementary occupations’ [45] while those older, and especially women, continue to be involved mainly in unpaid work within households and communities [49, 50]. Table 4 shows a combination reasons for working across gender, ethnic and residential lines and Table 5 types of work undertaken by older citizens.

Background variables	Choice (%)	Economic/other compulsion (%)	Number
Age
55–64	37.0	63.0	46
65 years +	62.5	37.5	16
Sex
Male	42.2	57.8	45 (73%)
Female	47.1	52.9	17 (27%)
Place of residence
Urban	46.9	53.1	49
Rural	30.8	69.2	13
Ethnicity
Fijian	45.9	54.1	37 (60%)
Indian	40.0	60.0	25 (40%)
Marital status
Married	48	52.0	50
Ever married and single	25.0	75.0	12
Education
Secondary or Less	34.1	65.9	41
Tertiary or More	61.9	38.1	21
Income
<F$3000	31.3	68.8	16 (26%)
F$3000–F$5999	33.3	66.7	15 (24%)
F$6000–F$8999	30.0	70.0	10 (16%)
F$9000–F$14999	58.3	41.7	12 (19%)
F$1500 and more	77.8	22.2	9 (15%)

Table 4.

Working older citizenz by reason and social variables.

Source: Adapted from Seniloli and Tawake [36].

		Crafts and related trades	Consultancy	Elementary
Age	55–64	21.7	26.1	52.2
	65–74	25	12.5	62.5
Marital status	Married	26.0	22.0	52.0
	Ever married/single	8.3	25	66.7
Sex	Males	23.7	28.9	47.4
	Females	20.8	12.5	66.7
Area	Urban	22.2	17.8	60.0
	Rural	23.5	35.3	41.2
Ethnicity	Fijian	22.5	22.5	55.0
	Indian	22.7	22.7	54.5
Living With	Alone/Spouse	16.7	25.0	58.3
	Children	25.9	25.9	48.1
	Children & Others	23.7	9.1	6.6
Education	Primary or Less	20.0	12.0	68.0
	Secondary or more	24.3	29.7	45.9
Living education	= < 3	19.5	26.8	53.7
	= > 4	28.6	14.3	57.1
House hold size	1–3	7.4	33.3	59.3
	>4	34.3	14.3	51.4
Health status	Not so healthy	—	33.3	66.7
	Healthy	28.9	22.2	48.9
	Very Healthy	9.1	18.2	72.7

Table 5.

Type of work at old age in Fiji by socio-economic variables.

Source. Adapted from Senololi and Tawake [36].

9. Social policy, social protection and aging in Fiji

The current ‘Welfare regime’ in Fiji remains a substantial replica of the ‘Colonial welfare regime’ albeit with some tinkering to respond to post-colonial socio-economic challenges. Among the different ‘Pillars’ of welfare, or social protection as it is now called, is a ‘Social Pension Scheme’ designed specifically as assistance for older people. Added to this is also a transportation allowance named ‘Bus Fare Programme, to assist disabled and older people. The colonial Pillar of ‘Destitute Allowance ‘has been replaced by a ‘Family Assistance Scheme ‘to reflect the traditional concern for families and as a support for a household in need and in poverty. The Social Pension scheme is still targeted and the amount differentiated by age categories. Thus older people at 65–69 will receive a 15% increase of allowance to FJD 115 and those from 70 and above will receive FJD 125.00. But the assistance is not universal. It is targeted by age (60–64 excluded). Older people 60 year and yet to be 64 are catered for through other facilities within the ‘welfare regime’ [50]. Increasingly the policy appears to be inching slowly toward a universal coverage albeit with few differentiations.

This form of social protection for the aging population is underscored by the large number of older people, about 70%, without access to any pensions. And this will continue as a consequence of contractions in the economy leading to high unemployment and a burgeoning informal /subsistence sector [12]. But even the monthly receipts, by the few older pensioners, of retirement benefits, from the National Provident fund are low. The National Policy on Aging noted, in 2011, that Provident Fund receipts, for many, is only about ‘1.7 times the basic needs poverty line for an urban resident and about 2.0 times the poverty line for a rural resident’ [32]. And that, ‘on the basis of these figures, the average Provident Fund recipient ‘is skewed toward the lower end of the distribution with few individuals receiving well above the average but most receiving below average pensions’ [32]. This is a result of multiple factors within the political economy of Fiji. These include, low productivity [51], low salary and wage levels and therefore limited contributions into the Fund, lack of investments to expand the economy and provide employment and retirement at age 60 (raised from 55 just about 3 months ago) to complement the actuarial calculations of provident fund benefits payment logic.

Under pressure from the economy the intergenerational household which harnesses resources now provides no respite from poverty and assurance of decent livelihood at old age. Recent analytical work on poverty trends in Fiji [52] found that ‘households with children and elderly are much more likely to be poor.’ And that ‘households with both elderly and children are the poorest with a poverty head count of 52%. But ageing parents within intergenerational households are not idle and solely dependent on household resources. Evidence from research show involvement with community activities, maintenance of social relations and most importantly provide critical services within the household [53]. As far back as 1984, 71% of older people (69 and 73 male and female) reported providing household services such as caring for grandchildren. And there was no significant gender differences [54]. While a replication of this survey is yet to be undertaken, qualitative data from sources report a significant number of older people, and increasingly older women, in intergenerational households continue to provide relevant services of relevance which contributes, in the words of Mkandawire [55], to produce the ‘means of production.’

10. Conclusion

Population aging in Fiji has benefited from the advancement in the prevention of disease to lead to an increases in life expectancy for both men and women but with an observable feminization of aging as women have a higher life expectancy. However challenges within the economy and health, due to increasing chronic NCDs at old age, continue to impact on livelihood inspite of the strong belief and practices in intergenerational living and harnessing of resources. This has compelled older people to work even after retirement at age 55 and now 60, and more older women to provide unpaid services within intergenerational households. An earlier social protection scheme designed under British colonialism was limited, targeted, and deprived many older people of any services to contain social risks. This transferred the burden of old age care and well-being to, and reinforced, traditional intergenerational households. But the intergenerational household is under stress from pressures in the economy. An established Provident Fund, just before independence, still remains limited in its coverage and thus unable to avert poverty at old age for many. To date a revised, but still targeted, social protection scheme called social pension provides for the livelihood for almost 50% of the older population in Fiji.

Clearly then increasing poverty in old age is largely socioeconomic determined rather than a natural state of affairs in growing old. And the same economic issues impact on livelihood as intergenerational relations and resources are put under pressure. Social theorizing on population aging, especially for developing countries, can benefit substantially from a perspective which considers the historical origins of the nature and structure of work and its impact on traditional family and intergenerational relations on issues such as resource mobilization, livelihood and the changes in the aging situation. Where policy initiatives are designed to respond to the ‘crisis ‘of population ageing these should be evidence informed from primary data rather than a tinkering of old and obsolete ‘welfare regimes.’ The issue of historical change held as primary in understanding population aging also then underlines the limitations of this study which is based on secondary data. The analysis of the data however has answered the key questions of the chapter. Time and resources limits the efforts for current and primary data on aging in Fiji but the analytical method of change must remain a focus on changes in social formations.