Is Elder Care a Social or Individual Responsibility?

Through working on the Sri Lanka project, I encounter a question that "Is taking care of elder a social responsibility or Individual responsibility?"

Since I have been living in developed countries such as Japan or USA, I tend to look at everything through "my own lens" which is based on what I have known through my life experiences. Talking with people who live and work in developing world, I was often embarrassed myself how narrow minded I became. For example, I was challenged by some people when I indicated that "developed world might fail to provide a quality of life for elders because we created an institution with medical model mindset." They said that "it sounds like an argument from the countries where they can spend time and abundant resources to discuss about the issue. In the places like Sri Lanka, people have to manage with what they can afford, and do not have a time and resources to so." When I heard these comments, I realized that my argument was constructed based on "what we have already have in the developed world where basic social system is put in place to look after elders, such as pension, social security, affordable housings, or residential care."

In the USA, Japan, or European countries, we tried to establish a social system to ensure that elders would be looked after as societal responsibility. In developing countries, however, elder care has been treated as individual/family responsibility because 1) traditional societal value of family care still remain as strong ethical responsibility, 2) their countries/society cannot afford providing elder care in the level that developed countries can offer.

I personally believe that we should always try to find a culturally appropriate balance between the two: Social and Individual responsibility. We should not forget that society consists of individuals, and individuals are part of society, and these two parts are inter-connected.

How can we find the balance between the two to provide a care that elders can live with dignity and happiness? I found it difficult to see "from users' point of views" because we have been unconsiously seeing our surroundings with "our lens." I would like to think further about this issue....