Community Care Service through the Demographic and Cultural Framework
A personal observation, short portrait, and comparison between Indonesia and Taiwan Community Care Practice
According to the demographic report, within the 273,523,615 population, Indonesia is dominated by people aged 16–64 which is the productive age, and also the life expectancy is 72,3 for both sexes combined which is a bit low compared to the life expectancy in Taiwan. The way this determined how the community care that focuses on aiming for elderly care in my country and the society served is by the priority reason, the quantity of elderly is less than the number of young people in need. Other than having a lower number on the elderly population, the lack of effective accessibility to corners of Indonesia which have to be done by air and sea transportation that quite expensive, and some are even inaccessible also determining the quality and quantity of the elderly community care this country and society provide.
There are a lot of community care that aim for other more significant domination, like community care for orphan kids and also community care for mentally and physically ill people. There is also centered community care that has the service for the elderly but focuses on broad aiming in one area are controlled by the government, and with that, the society surrounds it could get a service and care, including for the elderly. The type and quality of these centers are various knowing that Indonesia consists of many islands and rural areas. Community care that is aimed at the elderly is often called ‘Panti Jompo’ or ‘Posyandu Lansia’. The type of care they give is quite similar to Taiwan, in which one of its focus is on both their physical and mental health and everyday nursing. But I could say, not all this type of community care is great in quality. In quality, I mean the innovative programs and activities the community offers are not greatly operated yet like community care in Taiwan does. For example, there is not much of a program that is given the educational and entrepreneurial knowledge and experience for the elderly, and even if they have, the operating system is often quite dull due to the lack of concern that people put for the elderly’s wealth and experience. One of the popular mindsets here is when people are getting older and have the opportunity to be cared for by care-workers, they do not have to continue chasing productivity that is related to producing money because that is the job of their kids to give money and care for them. This could affect other aspects, like funding, the lack of skill saving, and many others that important not just for the sake of the people, but also for the community.
Cultural aspects always took part in how people and society do things. The majority of people in Indonesia are religious, dominated by Islam. Law, policies, are often determined by this aspect. Marriage, food control, is the example of policies that are influenced by Islam belief. In this case, there is not that deep of an influence. But some of the cases are determined by a mindset that is formed by the cultural aspect. Like I said before, the elderly that are not necessary to be working is one of the examples. There is also another popular mindset that the old generation was holding tightly, it is the way of thinking that having a lot of kids is the way of getting better wealth. These mindsets indirectly build the condition of our demography, which sooner or later will also build another culture about the caring systems of the elderly.
