First Multipartite Regional Meeting on the Financial Security of Older Women in East and Southeast Asia (By Invitation Only)

There is a growing consensus among various studies that ensuring the economic security of older people may be the primary social and economic challenge for Asia in the coming years. Addressing older women’s financial security may well be the most critical and pressing specific area of concern.

In 2008, Tsao Foundation initiated the Citi-Tsao Foundation Financial Education Programme for Mature Women in partnership with Citi Foundation to address the financial vulnerability of low-income, mature women aged above 40 years old and highlight to key policy makers the critical need for a public policy to ensure financial security when they reach old age. In the past three years the program has been adapted in Indonesia and recently in Malaysia.

Women worldwide have a higher life expectancy than men which means women will form the majority of the elderly population. Further, fewer older women are economically active all over the world and similarly, in the region. Women are more likely to be economically dependent in old age because of lower overall labour force participation and because they also tend to be paid less than men for the same work or work of equal value. Many older women provide care for, or are the sole caregivers of, dependent young children, spouses / partners or old parents and are largely unpaid for this care work. This has essentially excluded many older women from accessing private health insurance or from state-provided schemes, pensions and social security. Due these, women are particularly vulnerable to poverty in old age.

The First Multipartite Regional Meeting on the Financial Security of Older Women in East and Southeast Asia aims to bring together key policymakers, with particular interest in finance and the economy, from the 10 member countries and country partners of the ASEAN Plus 3, relevant NGOs, policy think tanks and international organizations and leading academics, to bring attention and action on the issue of financial security among older women, with the following objectives:

• To highlight the current state of older women in the region with specific focus on their income and financial security;
• To discuss existing relevant government policies and programs implemented by NGOs;
• To draw a framework for action as a roadmap to addressing the issue; and
• To facilitate public-private partnerships that will promote more effective policy-action translation.