Preparing for old age is an intergenerational responsibility
Let me start a topic close to my age with some depressing news. If the SamlamAllianz’s 2026 report released this week is accurate, most employed Kenyans are likely to go poor before we grow older. Released this week, the report also triggered me to reflect on the rights of all older persons not just those eligible for pensions.
While informed by only 300 respondents, the “Kenya Before it Ages” report is important reading. Only three out of ten Kenyans think they are on track for a comfortable retirement. Most expect to experience a lower standard of living or outright hardship. Saving is still very difficult for most. Sixty-two per cent cited the burden of dependents, 44 per cent pointed to household expenses, and 37 per cent said low or irregular incomes are their biggest obstacles. With these obstacles, very few would survive past two months if their primary income stopped now. Half of them have already had to withdraw a portion of their retirement savings for emergencies.
Demographers tell us the world and Kenya are aging faster than many of us realise. Over the last decade, the number of persons over the age of 65 has proportionately risen by 2 percentage points from 8.5 per cent to 10.5 per cent across the world. This is a significant jump by demographic standards. This silver haired demographic now exceeds the number of children under the age of 5 for the first time in recorded times. There’s more. Expect the percentage of older people to double by 2060.
While there is no binding international United Nations treaty, Africa has had the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Older Persons in Africa for the last ten years. Ratified by Kenya in 2022, it prohibits discrimination and guarantees rights to work, a pension, support services, and long-term care.
Older persons have their own clause in the Kenyan constitution. Article 57 obligates the Kenya State to ensure older persons fully participate in public affairs, access development and live dignified lives free of abuse supported by their families and the State. Though we have a National Policy (2018) and a Social Protection Act (2025), the Older Persons Bill still has not been introduced into Parliament, two years after it was drafted.
For most Kenyans, ageing does not mean retiring but continuing to informally work to support multigenerational dependents and extended families. Formal pension coverage stands at 7.3 million members and covers only a quarter of those employed. With the gig economy, a new job category needs to be catered for. Unlike Singapore, there is no universal state pension in Kenya. NSSF contributions are only beginning to pick up.
The Inua Jamii Older Persons Cash Transfer has flatlined at Sh 2,000 per month for those aged 70 and above since it’s launch thirteen years ago in 2013. To be meaningful, it would need to be closer to Sh 4,500 and Sh 8,000 per month for those living in rural and urban areas respectively.
We still have no long-term elder care regulations or elder abuse specific reporting channels. Given increasing cases of murder and dispossession of older persons over inheritance, this must worry us. With four out of five living in rural areas and one in two in poor households, we need more agricultural finance and SME lending tailored to older entrepreneurs. We also require more telemedicine and community health workers where clinics are sparse. With most Kenyans earn their living informally, reforming NSSF and expanding private pensions will not be enough. We must also strengthen Inua Jamii and other social protection measures.
These measures would help older Kenyans remain productive and engaged, and able to share their knowledge and experience rather than becoming dependent on younger relatives and an already strained public health system.
Older Kenyans may increase from the current 5 to 8 per cent of the population by 2060. Assuming that growing old is the ambition of every Kenyan, then preparing for it must be an intergenerational priority. The state and nation can do more.
This opinion was also published in the Saturday Standard, 17 October 2026. The SANLAMAllianz 2026 report can be read here.
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