Social Protection and Elderly Care

Abstract

Extended lifetime and retirement are determining the position of the elderly in contemporary society. We are far from conditions in which everyone, with no difference of age, sex, education and place of residence, could spend life in the safety of no risks. We live in a time of great political and economic crisis and changes in which entire categories of population, especially the elderly, are at risk of poverty, sickness, loneliness and vulnerability and are not able to cope without the assistance of their families and social institutions. In Serbia, care of elderly was traditionally duty of the family with intergenerational care character, frequently families are no longer in possibility to bear this care alone. Many elderly people live alone or just in elderly households since their youth, having left the country looking for a better life in the last two decades. New elected laws and strategies regarding slenderly care are efforts to aid people of "third life time" through residential and alternative (community) forms of care. This paper presents forms of elderly care, stressing the importance of more efficient forms of aid in support of the community, in the process of integrating the elderly into society. Residential care should be regarded as the last option for those who need permanent medical care and assistance. The problem of the elderly is an important social phenomenon that requires the professional assistance of gerontologists, sociologists, social workers, criminologists, psychologists, etc.