{"id":3239,"date":"2026-10-01T17:34:31","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T17:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cpiran.net\/english\/?p=3239"},"modified":"2026-10-01T17:34:37","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T17:34:37","slug":"aging-in-the-shadow-of-povertythe-situation-of-the-elderly-and-retirees-in-iran-on-the-occasion-of-international-day-of-older-persons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cpiran.net\/english\/aging-in-the-shadow-of-povertythe-situation-of-the-elderly-and-retirees-in-iran-on-the-occasion-of-international-day-of-older-persons\/","title":{"rendered":"Aging in the Shadow of Poverty;The Situation of the Elderly and Retirees in Iran on the Occasion of International Day of Older Persons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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October 1, corresponding to September 30, is the International Day of Older Persons. The United Nations General Assembly designated this day on December 14, 1990, to encourage governments and the media to recognize the achievements of older citizens, examine their issues and difficulties, and seek solutions to address them. In many countries, this day is an opportunity to emphasize older persons\u2019 right to live with dignity and to enjoy security, healthcare, housing, and adequate nutrition. In Iran, however, aging takes place against a backdrop of poverty, inflation, economic crisis, war, and corruption. Older Iranians are not merely facing old age; they are also struggling with declining purchasing power, the rising cost of medicine and healthcare, the housing crisis, the collapse of the national currency, and economic insecurity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The world\u2019s population today stands at approximately eight billion, more than one billion of whom are over the age of 60. In a system where capitalists are concerned only with producing goods and services and making profits, older people are regarded as individuals who are \u201cpast their prime\u201d and \u201ca financial burden.\u201d For decades, capitalists in Britain referred to workers as \u201chands\u201d; and when those hands could no longer generate wealth for them, they were considered deserving of pity at best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Older people in all capitalist societies have faced abuse and deprivation to varying degrees, and after retirement have lived on incomes far lower than those they earned while working.
But they have not remained passive. With the support of progressive women and men, older people have protested and struggled against employers and governments, forcing governments to provide them with benefits and support. In recent years, older people and their supporters have also gathered and marched in cities around the world on International Day of Older Persons to protest against \u201celder abuse\u201d and the indifference of governments and the media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran is aging rapidly, and the proportion of its population over 60 will increase significantly in the coming decades.
Nevertheless, officials of the Islamic Republic themselves have acknowledged that 55 percent of older people, particularly in rural areas, lack government support and coverage under social insurance schemes. Millions of retirees, after decades of work, have also been forced to take to the streets to demand their legal entitlements, a reality that reveals the depth of the aging crisis in Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a society where people’s purchasing power is continually declining, older people suffer more than others, because unlike those who are employed, they have no opportunity to increase their income, and their pension is their only source of livelihood. According to domestic media reports, workers who retire after years of employment and receive pensions from the Social Security Organization earn, at best, around 10 million tomans per month; an amount several times below the poverty line that, until recently, covered only ten days of monthly expenses. Now, amid skyrocketing and relentless price increases, even those ten days can no longer be covered. For example, a retired resident of Tehran who, despite a 40 percent increase in his pension, remains unable to meet his basic living expenses,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inflation, the collapse of the rial, and the ever-increasing cost of all goods and services have driven retirees and older people into poverty and hardship. Some food items, such as fish, have disappeared from their tables, while meat consumption has been reduced to a minimum. The prices of dairy products and eggs, which are staple foods for the impoverished sections of society, have doubled, and the cost of services such as water, electricity, gas, telephone, and internet consumes approximately half the income of a family of four. In addition, the high cost of medicine and the crushing expenses of medical treatment place an added burden on a group that needs healthcare services more than any other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This disastrous situation has forced many retirees, after forty years of work, to seek employment again or endure even greater poverty and hardship. Sometimes, even people over the age of 80 are compelled to return to their former jobs for lower wages or take on simple, unskilled work in new occupations, earning meager wages to ease their living burdens slightly. These individuals are called \u201cworking elderly\u201d and are sometimes unfairly accused by certain sections of society of taking jobs away from younger workers. Critics forget that it is the Islamic Republic and the owners of capital who, by creating poverty, have forced older people, many of them ill, to work in the cold and heat. Older people who are kept in poverty and in inhumane conditions, with weakened bodies and exhausted minds, are more vulnerable to illness than others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

War also has severe indirect effects on the lives of older people: rising prices of medicine and food, disruptions to healthcare services, increasing housing rents, and declining incomes among their children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many older people depend on financial support from their children, and for this reason, poverty among the younger generation is directly transferred to older people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among them, older women are more vulnerable. A large portion of their work throughout their lives has consisted of domestic and caregiving labor, which has never been recognized within the systems of insurance and wages. As a result, many of them are deprived of independent pensions, while their longer life expectancy also increases the likelihood that they will live alone and without income in their final years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crisis in pension funds is not caused solely by embezzlement; it also has demographic and financial roots: the ratio of active contributors to retirees has declined, government debt to the funds has accumulated, and current policies have left the funds facing persistent deficits. Nevertheless, corruption and mismanagement play a decisive role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fundamental question is: Who owns the pension funds? If the funds\u2019 resources come from workers\u2019 and employees\u2019 insurance contributions, why should the actual owners of these resources not have oversight over their administration? Financial transparency, managerial accountability, the prohibition of conflicts of interest, and insured individuals\u2019 access to information must be fundamental principles governing the administration of these funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent years, retirees have become one of the most active and persistent groups of protesters in Iran. Their struggles, which form part of Iran\u2019s labor movement, have repeatedly been targeted by repressive forces, and the regime\u2019s judiciary has also fabricated cases against active retirees. Their main demands are clear: increasing pensions in line with inflation and the actual cost of living; fully implementing pension equalization and adjustment measures; paying outstanding arrears; resolving supplementary insurance problems and ensuring adequate, affordable healthcare; counting years spent in arduous and hazardous occupations when calculating pensions; and securing sustainable funding for pension funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although these protests have not resolved the crisis, they have not been without effect. They have turned the issue of older people into a matter of public concern, compelled the government to make decisions regarding pension adjustments and the payment of arrears, and transformed retirees into a lasting social force. Today’s worker is tomorrow’s retiree, and today’s working woman is tomorrow’s older woman. Therefore, the struggle for the rights of workers and women is also a struggle for a dignified old age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is clear that as long as this regime remains in power and spends the country’s wealth and the fruits of the working class’s labor on its domestic and foreign military priorities and adventures, the suppression of people’s struggles for their rights, and the promotion of superstition, no fundamental improvement in the lives of retirees and older people will be achieved. But even until then, we must not sit idly by. We must fight to achieve the most urgent demands of this section of society, whose members have devoted their lives to working and keeping the wheels of society turning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are our fathers and mothers, and after a lifetime of effort and hard work, they deserve the best and safest living conditions. Genuine respect for older people cannot be achieved through slogans; it requires adequate pensions, accessible healthcare, suitable housing, social security, transparency, the fight against corruption, and the right to organize. Older people do not need pity; they are citizens who have worked their entire lives and have the right to live with dignity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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