A/HRC/45/14 violence.41 Information is required about the avenues to report abuse, existing support for victims and access to remedy. Special attention must also be paid to issues that are considered taboos, such as sexual violence and rape in later life. 42 64. Furthermore, dedicated surveys would be instrumental in overcoming existing underreporting challenges, provided that they were conducted by trained personnel, in compliance with high ethical standards. This could help address the estimated 80 per cent underreporting rate, 43 which is attributed to the fear of exposing a family member, losing services or being placed in a nursing home against the older person’s will, and lack of support and information, 44 as well as the internalization of ageism, which leads older persons to play down abuse. 45 3. Adequate standard of living 65. Another gap within existing data sets concerns old-age poverty. Pension inadequacy is often used as the main explanatory criterion for which an older person’s standard of living falls below an adequate level. 46 This indicator alone does not capture the reality of older persons’ standard of living, which will also depend on the availability of other sources of income, such as income from work or family support, and on unavoidable expenses, such as out-of-pocket payments to access health care, care, and other essential services. Measuring poverty through pension levels does not take into account whether older persons provide support to family members. Such knowledge gaps encourage portrayals of older persons as a burden and could induce intergenerational divides. 66. Documenting and addressing old-age inequalities requires that data on income and poverty take into account the multiple sources of income of older persons, and, therefore, a comprehensive approach involving a number of indicators. It also needs to factor in whether older persons can dispose of their resources freely and autonomously, and how their income is spent, as well as intrafamily transfers. 67. The common use of household surveys cannot provide conclusive evidence about the income and living conditions of older persons. Where older persons live with younger generations, household surveys do not provide for the required differentiation of the situation of older persons as opposed to other members of their household. Older persons may not benefit from an equal share of the household income, even though they may have increased needs as compared to other household members, for instance to cover their health or care costs.47 68. Most national and regional statistics do not contain data on the situation of older persons aged 75 and over. Data needs to be collected about the socioeconomic realities of different age cohorts among the older population, particularly of the oldest old, which is the fastest-growing segment of the population. The older old, for instance, have a higher risk of poverty than older persons who have retired recently when pensions are not indexed and as a result of higher health and long-term care costs. Statistics that were more granular would make it possible to reflect more accurately these increased challenges to the right to an adequate standard of living for the older old. 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 See www.un.org/esa/socdev/documents/ageing/ReportofEGMNeglectAbuseandViolenceofOlderWomen. pdf. A/HRC/42/43/Add.2, para. 86; and A/HRC/42/43, para. 95. WHO, A Global Response to Elder Abuse and Neglect: Building Primary Health Care Capacity to Deal with the Problem Worldwide (2008). Economic Commission for Europe, Policy Brief on Ageing No. 14: Abuse of Older Persons; and WHO, European Report on Preventing Elder Maltreatment (2011). John Williams, “When I’m sixty-four: lawyers, law and old age”, Cambrian Law Review, vol. 34 (2003), p. 103. Economic Commission for Europe, Recommendations on Ageing-related Statistics, prepared by the Task Force on Ageing-related Statistics. A/HRC/42/43, para. 47. 15