1 October was designated the International Day of Older Persons by the United Nations General Assembly at its 68th plenary meeting. The 2018 theme ''Celebrating Older Human Rights Champions'' celebrates the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is interesting that the General Assembly did not determine the age limit for old age. Dedicated website sets the age limit to 60 years. An older person is defined in Slovenia as a person aged 65 or more. There is a question if this traditional age limit is still suitable for Slovenia. Perhaps the age limit 75 or more could be more appropriate (more about that in the article Is the Traditional Age Limit for Defining Older Persons (65+) Still Adequate?).

One of the basic human rights is also decent living in old ages with other family members at home or to be settled in an adequate institution. Old people’s homes substitute or supplement the functions of home and family supplying the residence, organized nutrition and social and health security. According to the Association of Social Institutions of Slovenia data, as of 1 January 2018 there were 123 old people’s homes or special social welfare institutions in the public network with the capacity of almost 19,000 places. At least one unit was located in 91 municipalities (out of 212). The distribution of capacities and the population aged 65 years or more by statistical regions is equalized.

There were 401,262 older persons in Slovenia at the beginning of 2018 (58% of them women), which is 11,000 more than a year before. For many consecutive years the number of centenarians has been decreasing. The main reasons are less people born during World War I and the Spanish flu epidemic right after WWI. The trend of decreasing of the number of centenarians is going to slow down and after 2020 the number will increase by leaps.

Further analyses include 17,321 persons (aged 65+) having their usual residence as of 1 January 2018 in ''classical'' old people’s homes (including those not being part of the public network). There were 132 units located in 93 municipalities.

By age 70 less than 1% of the generation is settled in the institutional care (men enter a little bit earlier than women), while at the age of 85 one in ten residents is living in old people's home and at age of 95 one in three.

Due to adequate spatial distribution of capacities, 87% of people in care are residing in institutions located in the same statistical regions as their permanent residences. The most in the Pomurska region (97%), the lowest share is in the Zasavska region (70%). Out of 2,210 people living in old people's homes outside the regions of permanent residence, 40% of them originated from the Osrednjeslovenska region.