The elderly appear in nursing home almost equally in case of both having daughters and sons

Today during the press conference held at Media center Coordinator of the program of the United Nations Population Fund “Support to population policies implementation” Anna Hovhannisyan represented the results of polls conducted by Unites Nations Population Fund among the elderly in nursing homes of Armenia, based on the questions whether they have children and they are daughters or sons:

“Question was not accidental. The issue of gender imbalance is a problem in Armenia, as the families are still having preference for a male child, explaining that a girl will go away and a son will stay with parents and take care of them. However, the survey results show that it is not so”.

The survey was conducted among the 623 elderly living in nursing homes of Yerevan, Gyumri and Nork. 284 of them had no children. 72 % of the respondents had a boy-child, in general 365 sons, 21 % of whom do not visit their parents at all.

“By the way their percentage could be higher if we added the sons who visit their parents only on the days of the receipt of pension. Yes, we regretfully state the fact that they come to see their parents only for pension”.

According to her, the same problem applies equally to daughters; it means that the elderly almost equally appear in nursing homes in case of having daughters as well.

The respondents had 324 daughters and 173 of them never come to see their parents.

In response to the question whether there have been cases that children took their parents home, the following answer was given – Rarely. I remember just a few such cases.

Full text in Armenian