Social Rights of the Elderly as Part of the New Human Rights Agenda

Today, social rights, which include the basic material requirements for a dignified life, are at the core of the new human rights agenda. Recent international conventions that address the problems of poverty, discrimination, isolation, and social exclusion among older persons have produced general principles that affirm their social, as well as political rights. Retirement security and healthcare represent two of the core pillars of the welfare state as it evolved during the twentieth century. Today most middle and even low-income nations have formal employment-based retirement systems, although many of those remain seriously inadequate. In this chapter we focus on the sources of retirement security among older individuals in Latin America, with a particular focus on Mexico. Mexico introduced an employment-based defined-benefit retirement scheme in 1943. That system was plagued by numerous problems, and even after radical reforms, including a switch to private defined-contribution plans, problems of labor force informality, low contribution densities, and low replacement rates persist. As a result, Mexico, like many other nations, has introduced state and federal noncontributory pensions, upon which most older individuals rely. Although these pensions address the immediate problem of extreme poverty among older persons, they are minimal and reintroduce the long-term problems of fiscal unsustainability. We discuss the growing role of civil society organizations (CSOs) in advocating for the social and human rights of older persons.