Some words about Youth after the Day of Elders… Info-Prim Neo Commentary

“Who has no grandfathers, should buy one” is no longer an actual proverb. If not today, then in a year or two, this wise advice could be changed as follows: “Who has a grandchild, should give him a call to Italy (Spain, Greece etc.)”. Even the statistics published on the occasion of the International Day of Elders, celebrated on October 1, have the gloom of lonely hoary age: Moldova has over half a million of pensioners. Their number could be twice as much in 2008-2010, because by that time, the generation born in 1948-1950, which is 2-3 times greater than the previous ones, would reach retirement age. Year by year, according to the same figures, Moldovan population is continuously aging. In 2004, persons aged 60 and above represented 14% (every 7th Moldovan). To draw a comparison, this share constituted 12.3% in 1990. According to the Beajeau-Garnier scale, figures above 12% point to the population’s demographic aging. As a consequence, the dependence ratio is going up, triggering overstress on social insurances, public health, social protection and labor force systems, which eventually has a great impact on the social-economic state of affairs. Why is then Moldova irreversibly aging? Are we enjoying our lives that much, as official reports claim, so that old people are that keen to stay alive?! Or has the Ministry of Health, merged recently with that of Social Protection, invented the “youth potion” and prescribes it to elders as a supplement to their allowances, which increased “three times, by 5 lei”?! Not even close. The average life expectancy in Moldova stays Europe’s lowest – 68.07, compared with the EU – 79.06, and the causes of the high mortality rate are poverty and low quality social services. The answer is simple and dramatic as well: Moldova grows old because it loses young people. Hundreds of thousands of Moldovans, almost solely labor-age population, have fled the country, dispersing all over the world in a pursuit for a place in which they would not feel as miserable and handicapped as to not be able to build a future. It took little time to bring their children after putting down roots on foreign soil, so that their children don’t even come to know how unworthy a state can treat its own citizens. Authorities stubbornly refuse to evaluate the true scale of this social calamity, acting accordant with Grandpa Stalin’s judgment: “No man, no problem”. The census produced in 2004 reveals 342 000 persons left abroad. Even if we take into account this figure, neglecting unofficial data which claim one million, there are grounds to assume that over the past two years migration rose, also due to the “reuniting family” procedure, hence the number of those settled abroad could amount to a quarter of the country’s citizens. Once again, its youngest part. Statistically speaking, during a single year, the number of labor-age population dropped 3%, meaning 43 000, including an 8% decrease of women. Many of them will give birth to foreign citizens, who eventually will work for the benefits of another country. In Moldova, those young people who stayed will finally grow old too, and their children will learn a lesson to perfection: one who studies hard wouldn’t become well off. Thus, the Republic of Moldova isn’t in any way a 15 year-old teenager aspiring for independence. It is more of a pitiful old lady, haunted by memories and the illusion of stability nurtured by a pension paid in due time, even if this barely covers subsistence; in the best case, waiting for a parcel with “humanitarian aid” and a few euros from their children, and in the worst – left in an alms-house… The same unmerciful statistics show a 58% increase of institutionalized elders, in 2002-2003. Counting those who have no relatives to arrange funerals for would be too unworthy for our officials and totally ill-matched with their “European vector”. After all, only living people come to elections…