traditionally supply much of the elderly care, renders this a highly gendered topic. The
majority of older persons within the region continue to reside with their children but the
number living alone or with an aged spouse is on the rise. At the same time, increased
education and employment opportunities for women are diminishing the availability of
the traditional source of elder care.
Urbanisation and Population Distribution
One session focused on trends in and explanations of urban-rural mortality
differentials and estimations of disease burdens due to poor air and water quality and
found that these factors do have important implications for human health in urban areas.
Another session examined trends in urbanisation and the urban hierarchy. That session
showed that there are important issues in defining megacities and their boundaries.
Studying only officially bounded areas, which understate the real built-up area, distorts
the picture of megacity growth. Megacities already present enormous challenges for
planning, as well as unique governance issues, and these challenges will increase in the
years ahead as urban population growth continues to outpace rural population growth. At
the same time, it was pointed out that most of the Southeast Asian urban population lives
in cities of below half a million, which should not be neglected in favour of a
concentration on megacity issues and problems.
Since over half of the population in most Asian countries continues to live in rural
areas and poverty is more concentrated in rural areas, the needs of rural populations have
to be kept in mind. Several sessions addressed issues pertinent to land use and
development in rural areas. Migrants are increasingly moving into upland areas seeking
additional plots in which to plant crops, toward coastal areas for fishing, and into fragile
rainforests areas. While these migrations can be understood as household survival
strategies to cope with poverty conditions, evidence does suggest that there are adverse
effects on the environment. These trends need to be monitored and policy actions taken
which have less harmful effects on the environment.