Elderly Issues

India already has the second largest elderly population in the world. Indians above the age of 60 increased 35 % from 2001 to 2011. India’s age dependency ratio also increased from 10.9% in 2001 to 14.2% in 2011.

Factors responsible – reduction in mortality due to economic well-being, better health care system, good medicines & reduction in fertility

Elderly Issues 

• Less than 1% of elderly population in India has health insurance despite requiring psychiatric or psychological intervention frequently

• Supply shortfall in affordable senior care homes & elder friendly Infrastructure like elderly recreation homes
• Lack of social security and pensions for majority of elderly population viz. 65 % of elderly in India are dependent on others for their financial requirements.
• Migration and displacement for work by the youth from rural to urban areas increases solitary elderly population i.e. 71 % elderly reside in villages while 29 % reside in cities
• The care of older persons in the families gets increasingly difficult in wake of increasing nuclear families & economic aspirations
• Data on elderly living in a region is not available thus hindering any disaster management activities related to elderly. For eg. Chennai disaster
• Government projections suggest occurring of feminization of elderly population, with 51% of the total likely to be women by 2016.

There is a lack of awareness about the prevalent schemes and programmes among the elderlies. Programmes are plagued with leakage and inability in identifying right beneficiaries.

Government Policies

• Social security is the concurrent responsibility of the central and state governments
• Well-being of senior citizens – Article 41 of Indian constitution
• National Old Age Pension Scheme
• National Programme for Healthcare for Elderly, 2010
• Draft National Policy on Senior Citizen, 2011

The foremost step that requires urgent attention is to sensitize people, especially the younger generation, towards the needs of our elderly population