Life of elderly in India

of the paper Aging of population is a major aspect of the process of demographic transition. It is generally expressed as older individuals forming large share of the total population. Such an increase is considered to be an end product of demographic transition or demographic achievements with a decline in both fertility and mortality rates and consequent increase in the life expectancy at birth and older ages. The recent emphasis on studies pertaining to the elderly in the developing world is attributed to their increasing numbers and deteriorating conditions. The lives of many older people are affected more frequently by the social and economic insecurity that accompany demographic and development process (World Bank 1994). The growth of individualism and desire of the independence and autonomy of the young generation (serow 2001) affect the status of the elderly. The studies show that the socio economic condition of older women is more vulnerable in the context of the demographic and the socio cultural change (Tout 1993). The situation of the elderly poverty has been a consistent phenomenon in the third world as the older population is deprived of the basic needs (Keyfitz and Flieger 1990). In this paper we make an attempt to profile life of elderly that reflects on deprivation among the elderly. Here most important question is whether age acts a determining factor in the life of a person. Or does age mediates living condition along with other factors that coexistence in life. Is there any change in the living condition over chronological ladders of human life? How does differ life varies across chronological ladder across space in India over time through a narration of what is happening in the Indian states in the past decade. Here we look into four parameters that create risk and to which chronologically disadvantaged population has to respond. They are marital status, work status, living arrangements of the elderly and dependency. Then look into how close interactions between these factors affect the overall living of the elderly by using an index of life for the Indian states. Here we mainly focuses on how there is an over all decline in the life of elderly by looking into four dimensions of life in terms of marital status, economic status( work participation) dependency and living arrangements. Here we profile these aspects to understand pattern of living among elderly in Indian states. The paper highlights that the living condition of the elderly varies differently across Indian states. The various dimensions are vertically integrated to get a weighted index called in this paper as quality of life among the elderly that take value zero to one with higher value provides worse living condition. It is clear that position of the elderly in terms of material and social well being is betterly positioned in the states of north India rather than south India.