Is Ontario ready for the silver tsunami? (original) (raw)
Related papers
Advancing Age-Friendly Communities in Canada
Canadian Review of Social Policy Revue Canadienne De Politique Sociale, 2012
The "age-friendly cities" concept proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) is a multi-sectoral policy approach to address demographic aging in urban settings. Canadian governments at all levels, seniors' organizations and non-governmental organizations have embraced this model for creating environments to support healthy, active aging. This paper describes how Canadian governments and partners have advanced the Age-Friendly Communities (AFC) initiative starting with the original development by WHO in 2006-07 to its current status five years later, involving the federal government, eight provinces, and 850 municipalities. With evidence of actions taken at the three levels of government, it is argued here that the successful evolution of AFC in Canada is the fruit of the national, collaborative leadership role played the Public Health Agency of Canada, the commitment of provincial partners to implement AFC fully in their jurisdiction, and the engagement of municipalities in creative and comprehensive community development with and for seniors. Advancing Age-Friendly Communities in Canada Canadian Review of Social Policy/Revue canadienne de politique sociale 11 publique du Canada, l'engagement des partenaires provinciaux à mettre pleinement en place le concept de communautés-amies des aînés sur leur territoire, et l'implication des municipalités en faveur d'un aménagement créatif et global de leur collectivité pour et avec les aînés.
Making communities age friendly: state and municipal initiatives in Canada and other countries
2011
To promote healthy, active aging, the age-friendly community initiative has evolved in Canada, Spain, Brazil and Australia, among other countries. An age-friendly community provides accessible and inclusive built and social environments where older adults can enjoy good health, participate actively and live in security. The rapid expansion of the initiative in all states can largely be explained by common key activities undertaken by the state, municipal and-in the case of Canada-also federal, governments. These initiatives include strategic engagements and policy action in all states, and knowledge development and exchange in Canada in particular. Strategic engagements involve creating or strengthening collaborative intersectoral relationships to access multiple arenas of decision-making, and addressing all areas that constitute an age-friendly community. With variations across states, policy actions have included the following: declaring the initiative as an official policy direction; establishing model cities to be emulated by other cities; funding community projects; implementing consistent methodology; evaluating implementation, enhancing public visibility, and aligning age-friendly community policy with other state-level policy directions. To stimulate knowledge development and exchange, Canadian efforts have included the creation of a community of practice and of a research and policy network to encourage the development and translation of scientific evidence on aging-supportive communities. These activities are expected to result in a strong and durable integration of older persons' views, aspirations, rights and needs in municipal, as well as state, planning and policy.
Aging policy and process in the Canadian federal government
Canadian Public Administration, 1987
This essay puts forward a reformulation of the federal government's aging policy and is intended to bring out the diversity of policy processes that operate in this field of political action. Four policy arenas are identified: the large-new, largeold, small-new, and small-old. Applying this typology, it becomes apparent that the existing Canadian age-policy literature has been mostly concerned with just one of these four categories, namely the large-new, while tending to neglect the other three.
Canadian Public Policy / Analyse de Politiques, 2003
Demographic change and policy reorientation are often conflated with economic and social changes in anticipating the social and policy implications of demographic aging. In this paper, an attempt is made to begin to disentangle these factors to gain a clearer sense of the implications of population aging for social and policy responses. Analyzed here are selected socio-economic changes that intervene in the connection of demographic aging to policy, such as actual working patterns by age, education to work timing, retirement patterns, productivity shifts, pension investment shifts, policy changes such as the move toward economic liberalism and away from redistribution and social protection, changing family patterns, and shifts among generations in terms of wealth inequality. These are related to shifts in demographic age structures. Data which are more illustrative than the analytical focus of the paper, come largely from various Statistics Canada sources.
Local Government and the Demography of Ageing
This review on the demography of ageing and the role of local government focuses on the main opportunities and challenges posed by population ageing for policymakers at the local level, and the ways in which such opportunities and challenges might be addressed.
Research Square (Research Square), 2023
Municipalities can foster the social participation of aging adults. Although making municipalities agefriendly is recognized as a promising way to help aging adults stay involved in their communities, little is known about the key components (e.g., services and structures) that foster social participation. This study thus aimed to identify key age-friendly components (AFC) best associated with the social participation of older Canadians. Secondary analyses were carried out using baseline data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (n=25,411) in selected municipalities (m=110 with ≥30 respondents), the Age-friendly Survey, and census data. Social participation was estimated based on the number of community activities outside the home per month. AFC included housing, transportation, outdoor spaces and buildings, safety, recreation, workforce participation, information, respect, health and community services. Multilevel models were used to examine the association between individual social participation, key AFC, and environmental characteristics, while controlling for individual characteristics. Aged between 45 and 89, half of the participants were women who were engaged in 20.2±12.5 activities per month. About 2.5% of the variance in social participation was attributable to municipalities. Better outdoor spaces and buildings (p<0.001), worse communication and information (p<0.01), and lower material deprivation (p<0.001), were associated with higher social participation. Age was the only individual-level variable to have a signi cant random effect, indicating that municipal contexts may mediate its impact with social participation. This study provides insights to help facilitate social participation and promote age-friendliness, by maintaining safe indoor and outdoor mobility, and informing older adults of available activities.
Impact of the ageing of populations on local government revenues and expenditures
Wiadomości Statystyczne. The Polish Statistician,, 2023
Ageing populations are a challenge for public finances. The problem is recognised better at country than at local level. This study aims to analyse the impact of the ageing of populations on the revenues and expenditures of Polish municipalities, as well as on their most important components. The author performed an econometric analysis (fixed effects regression) of panel data for 2,414 municipalities between 2004 and 2019. The data for the study was obtained from budgetary statements of Polish municipalities collected by the Ministry of Finance. It was preceded by an international literature review and an analysis of demographic changes in municipalities. The demographic data came from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland. The study positively verified the hypothesis that if the proportion of elderly citizens in a municipality increases, the local budget shrinks. A decrease in revenues and spending per capita was observed, which could mean that in ageing municipalities, citizens receive fewer and/or lower-quality public services. Since public services are in greater demand among lowerincome and less self-supporting citizens, they will be influenced by the cutting of local budgets to the largest extent. The study showed that ageing municipalities tend to spend less on care homes than those where the proportion of the elderly is smaller, even though this form of care is particularly needed in ageing communities. It means that the ageing problem might deepen horizontal inequalities between municipalities. Preventing this from happening requires effective local strategies in addition to a well-devised central policy.
Collaborative Partnership in Age-Friendly Cities: Two Case Studies From Quebec, Canada
Journal of Aging & Social Policy, 2014
This article aims to explain the collaborative partnership conditions and factors that foster implementation effectiveness within the AFC (age-friendly cities) in Quebec (AFC-QC), Canada.Based on a community-building approach that emphasizes on collaborative partnership, the AFC-QC implementation process is divided into three steps: 1) social diagnostic of older adults’ needs; 2) action plan based on a logic model; and 3) implementation through collaborations. The AFC-QC promotes direct involvement of older adults and seniors’ associations at each of the three steps of the implementation process, as well as other stakeholders in the community. Based on two contrasting case studies, this paper illustrates the importance of collaborative partnership for the success of AFC implementation. Results show that stakeholders, agencies, and organizations are exposed to a new form of governance where coordination and collaborative partnership among members of the steering committee are essential. Furthermore, despite the importance of the senior associations’ participation in the process, they encountered significant limits in the capacity of implementing age-friendly environments solely by themselves. In conclusion, we identify the main collaborative partnership conditions and factors in the AFCQC.