Problems and Prospects of Digital or Online Services Towards Making the Aged-Friendly City

Introduction

Cities are the home to the ever-increasing aged population. Just since 2019, approximately 13 million citizens in Bangladesh have been over the age of 60, accounting for 8% of the overall population in Bangladesh (United Nations, 2019). Aged people should not be considered as a burden but rather considered as assets, as they could contribute to society through their experiences and knowledge. They have the right to the city to have accessibility to the same services as other citizens. Due to unplanned development, land use, poor transport management, reduction of physical ability and some disability issues, aged people face many problems in reaching or availing services and the recent Covid 19 pandemics has made their situation more vulnerable. Ensuring accessibility of services through other means like digital ways could be an effective option.

Although nowadays digitalization of the services like health, transport, and groceries makes different facilities available, it requires clear idea and knowledge about using those services (Gatto & Tak, 2008; Stenitzer et al., 2008; Lian & Yen, 2014; Olphert & Damodaran, 2013). Thus, accessibility issues to digital services for older people may hinder the capturing benefits of online services. The number of aged people over 60 years and more will be 34% higher than in 2020 at the end of this decade and by 2050 the global aged population will be 2.1 billion whereas nearly 80% of the aged will live in less developed countries (Buffel & Phillipson, 2018; United Nations, 2020). The socio-economic context around the world is changing due to such a transformation in demographic structure (United Nations, 2020). According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report on ‘Aging in cities’, elders are from diversified groups based on socio-economic condition, physical ability, socio-cultural, biological, and chronological age (OECD, 2015). To make cities age-friendly and incorporate age-friendly questions in the policy and practice and create awareness about the impact of population aging on the planning and management of the urban environment (Buffel et al., 2012). Nevertheless, access to digital services and benefits consumption is not evenly dispersed within or between societies, and thus, older generations frequently fall on the 'wrong' side of what is referred to as the 'digital divide' (Olphert & Damodaran, 2013). On the contrary, it is a matter of hope that in the US, over the previous several years, an increasing number of retirees have begun to use the internet (Gatto & Tak, 2008). Internet users have increased from 2% to 15% from 1996 to 2000 of the Americans aged more than 65 years and this number again reached 22% in 2004 (Fox, 2004). However, it is a scenario of a developed country. In developing countries, this scenario is very static because of socioeconomic structure (White, et al., 2002; Saunder, 2004). On the other hand, the digitally inclusion of older groups can assist older adults to preserve their self-esteem and social connectivity in the face of decreasing health or diminished capacities, while also providing new chances to expand their standard of life (Olphert & Damodaran, 2013). According to reports, the primary benefit of online communication with family, companions, and friends on social sites (Clark, 2002; Bruck, 2002). Seniors who use computers for pleasure, the internet for browsing information, and e-mail for communication, feel less alienated and lonely (Nahm & Resnick, 2001; Clark, 2002; Fogel, et al, 2002). However, digital access related issues are quite unknown in case of developing country context. It requires an empirical study on digital access related issues in a developing country context. This study explores this context. The study answers the problems and prospects toward access to digital /online services for elder people in Dhaka City, Bangladesh. To get the answer the objectives for this study are to explore the current digital services in Dhaka city and older response on these services that fits for accessing digital services, shows how aged people experience the digital use of availing different services, what types of problems or confusion they have and at the end, tries to provide some guidelines on easing the use of digital tools by the aged in getting services. To fulfil the objectives, a questionnaire survey was conducted in ward 15 of Dhaka South City Corporation, which is known as the ‘Dhanmondi residential area’, Dhaka. People aged more than 60 years old were the target population from where through purposive sampling 100 samples were surveyed.