Currently, Vietnam is one of the countries with the fastest aging population in the world. This has been posing challenges to ensuring social security for the elderly, including proper economic conditions (income), access to social services and healthcare. Most elderly people neither have pensions nor receive social allowances or health insurance cards. Meanwhile, they have high needs for medical examinations and treatment and have to pay more for healthcare. This has entailed an urgent need to extend social security for the elderly in Vietnam in the context of increasing aging population nowadays. | Social Security for the Elderly in Vietnam Today Nguyen Dinh Tuan* Abstract: Currently, Vietnam is one of the countries with the fastest aging population in the world. This has been posing challenges to ensuring social security for the elderly, including proper economic conditions (income), access to social services and healthcare. Most elderly people neither have pensions nor receive social allowances or health insurance cards. Meanwhile, they have high needs for medical examinations and treatment and have to pay more for healthcare. This has entailed an urgent need to extend social security for the elderly in Vietnam in the context of increasing aging population nowadays. Keywords: social security, elderly, aging population, Vietnam. 1. Introduction Over the past 30 years, the ratio of elderly people in Vietnam has increased significantly. According to the intercensal population and housing survey on 1 April 2014 [2, p. 35], the numbers of senior citizens aged from 60 and 65 and above both had the tendency to grow over the past three decades. In the period from 1989 to 2014, the ratio of over 60-year-old people increased by (from in 1989 to in 1999; to in 2009 and in 2014); meanwhile, that of the 65-yearolds and older was increased by (from in 1989 to , and in 1999, 2009 and 2014 respectively). This was also the period with the fastest growth rate of the over 60-year-old people. In the viewpoint of the United Nations and other international organizations, in 2011, Vietnam became a population aging country (in 2011, the ratios of people above 65 reached 7%; of those above 60 reached 10% [14]). It is predicted that the ratio of the over 60-year-old people will reach in 2030 and in 2050 [15].* In addition to the indicators on the population of people over 60 and 65 years old, the population aging index also provides a clear trend of Vietnam’s population aging. Since 1989, the country’s aging index has .
