Human Rights | Social Protection | Dignity | Public Responsibility
Today’s focus: What happens when a lifetime of work is not enough to survive old age?
Quote of the Day
“Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security” — Article 22, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948.
Source: United Nations — Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 22.
After All Those Years of Work, What Should Remain?
Imagine a woman who has worked for more than thirty years.
She raised her children, paid her bills and contributed to her community. She went to work when she was tired, when she was unwell and sometimes when her family needed her at home.
Then retirement came.
At first, she welcomed the opportunity to rest.
But the years that followed were not what she had imagined.
Her savings began to disappear. Medication became a regular expense. The small amount she received each month was no longer enough to cover her basic needs.
Sometimes, she had to choose between buying medicine and buying food.
Her children helped whenever they could, but they had families and responsibilities of their own.
Eventually, she began to feel that asking for help was becoming a burden.
There is something deeply troubling about this situation.
A person can spend decades contributing to society and still reach old age without the means to live comfortably or independently.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes social security as a right.
That recognition matters because hardship does not always result from poor personal decisions.
People become sick. Jobs disappear. Disabilities affect the ability to work. Parents interrupt their careers to care for children. Workers retire after years of service, sometimes with very little financial security.
No society can eliminate every difficulty its citizens will face.
But it can decide whether people must face those difficulties entirely alone.
This is where social protection becomes more than a government programme.
It becomes a measure of how we value human dignity.
Of course, governments have limited resources. Pension systems must be funded, public spending must be managed, and benefits must reach those who qualify.
These are real responsibilities.
But financial limitations should encourage better systems, not indifference toward people who have already given so much of their lives to work.
A pension that arrives too late may leave someone borrowing money for necessities. A benefit that is impossible to access may offer little comfort to the person who needs it.
And a system that recognizes people’s contributions while they are working should not forget them when they can no longer work.
Perhaps one of the clearest measures of a society’s progress is how it treats people when they are no longer able to earn a living.
After all, growing old should not mean growing invisible.
Did You Know?
More than 80% of Africa’s population has no social protection benefit.
Social protection is often associated with pensions, but it covers much more.
It includes measures intended to support people during unemployment, disability, maternity, old age and other circumstances that affect their ability to earn a living.
According to the International Labour Organization, 52.4% of the world’s population was covered by at least one social protection benefit, based on estimates published in its September 2024 World Social Protection Report 2024–26.
That was an improvement from 42.8% in 2015.
However, approximately 3.8 billion people remained without any such protection.
The situation in Africa was particularly concerning.
The ILO estimated that social protection coverage across the continent had increased from 15.2% to just 19.1% between 2015 and 2023.
This means that more than four out of every five people in Africa were not receiving any of the social protection benefits measured by the report.
Consider a market trader who becomes seriously ill and cannot work for several months.
Without savings, insurance or public assistance, the consequences may extend far beyond the illness itself.
Rent becomes difficult to pay. Children may miss school. The family may borrow money that takes years to repay.
The same concerns affect elderly people without pensions, workers injured on the job and families that lose their main source of income.
Social protection cannot prevent every hardship.
But it can help stop one difficult event from pushing an entire family into lasting poverty.
The question is not simply whether a country has social protection programmes. It is whether ordinary people can actually benefit from them when they need help.
Sources: ILO — World Social Protection Report 2024–26, September 2024 · ILO — Social Protection Coverage by Region.
For Discussion
Should a person who has worked throughout their adult life ever have to depend entirely on relatives for food, housing or medication after retirement?
In Cameroon and elsewhere in Africa, how can governments extend social protection to market traders, farmers, domestic workers and others who may spend their entire working lives outside formal employment?
Should social protection depend mainly on contributions made during employment, or should governments guarantee a basic level of assistance to every elderly person who needs it?
And what responsibility should employers have when former workers retire without receiving the benefits they earned?
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