Social pensions and health and wellbeing

Abstract

The population of sub-Saharan Africa is ageing, generating important questions about how to provide for the growing number of older adults across the continent. Globally, societies have used social pensions as part of larger social protection systems to address poverty at older ages. Social pensions are a potentially powerful way to meet the needs of older adults while improving health and wellbeing in old age. Social pensions not only benefit older recipients, but often also have positive impacts on children living with older adults. This chapter discusses key issues related to older adults’ experience of social pensions in sub-Saharan Africa. To accomplish this, the chapter brings together literature from sub-Saharan Africa on the impacts of old age pensions with literature on the older adults’ health and wellbeing. The chapter highlights South Africa’s robust and well-studied social pension programme to provide guidance on how social pensions might meet the needs of older persons across sub-Saharan Africa and in low- and middle-income countries, more broadly, in the future.