The age of ageing: Barcelona’s growing elderly population

Barcelona is ageing fast. The elderly cohort constitutes a greater proportion of Barcelona’s population than ever before, and, perhaps most worryingly, face an increased likelihood of living alone. The rise in the number of elderly people living alone: 26% of the over-65 population as of 2012. In response to Barcelona’s burgeoning elderly population, Barcelona City Council has listed a number of priorities under the Municipal Care Plan. In addition to consolidating and expanding the most essential services, from residential homes, emergency shelters, home delivered meals and soup kitchens, the plan also outlines the need to provide a wider range of leisure and cultural activities for older people. It has also developed the Radars Project, a project, founded in 2008, which aims to reduce the risk of social isolation and exclusion in order to enable older people to continue living at home.