Care for Older Adults in India

The population aged 60 years and older in India constitutes over 7 per cent of the total population (1.21 billion) and is projected to triple in the next four decades, from 92 million to 316 million (James, 2011). Improved access to health care and better living conditions have resulted in this increased longevity. However, this does not readily translate into greater well-being for older adults in India. The implications of a rapidly ageing population means there is little or no time to develop the infrastructures required to meet the demands of an older population. Yet, in a country where very few pay taxes, India has not acquired the resources to develop state-funded care or housing for older people. One of the most prevailing assumptions in the context of older people’s care in India, is that families provide care and support to older people. While this has been the been the norm for centuries, contemporary India represents a climate where rapid demographic shifts have impacted on families, which means many older people are no longer guaranteed traditional family-based care in later life, especially from low-income adult children. Hence, the current generation of older adults in India are caught between different cultural norms of co-residence. They were born and socialised in multi-generational co-residential households and now find themselves often living with a married son and his family or increasingly on their own. Widowhood and deteriorating health conditions acts as push factors to renegotiate living arrangements based on the accessibility to caregivers. Moreover, large-scale internal and international migration of the younger age groups has left many households with fewer family caregivers. Care for Older Adults in India: Living Arrangements and Quality of Life brings together an interdisciplinary set of authors to examine the different patterns of living arrangements across India and how they impact on the provision of care and quality of life for older adults. The narrative that emerges across these chapters is one that challenges the assumed wisdom about the demographic, industrial and social change on older adults. The chapters in this book tell us a much more complex story about living arrangements and care for older adults in India. Rather than being a single, linear narrative, it is a story about the heterogeneity of families, care and migration experiences.