UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) India, in collaboration with the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), unveiled the “India Ageing Report 2023.”
- This report sheds light on the challenges, opportunities and institutional responses surrounding elderly care in India, as India navigates a demographic shift towards an ageing population.
What is ageing?
- In general, ageing is defined in terms of chronological age with a cut-off at 60 or 65 years (in part because it broadly coincides with the age at retirement).
- The population of older persons (60 years and above) is globally growing faster than the general population.
Demographic changes causes
- Three key demographic changes—declining fertility, reduction in mortality and increasing survival at older ages—contribute to population ageing.
Key highlights of report
- The percentage of elderly population in the country is projected to double to over 20% of total population by 2050
- By 2046 it is likely that elderly population will have surpassed the population of children (aged 0 to 15 years) in the country.
- More than 40% of the elderly in India are in the poorest wealth quintile, with about 18.7% of them living without an income.
- The population of people aged 80+ years will grow at a rate of around 279% between 2022 and 2050 with a “predominance of widowed and highly dependent very old women”.
- Women, on average, had higher life expectancy at the age of 60 and at the 80, when compared to men (feminisation) — with variations across States and Union Territories. For instance, in Himachal Pradesh and Kerala, women at 60 years have a life expectancy of 23 and 22 years, respectively, which is four years greater than men at 60 years in these States — as compared to the national average differential of only 1.5 years.
- Life expectancy of women at 60 years is greater than 20 years in States such as Rajasthan, Haryana, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, and the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir, raising concerns about their social and economic well-being, the report said.
- The sex ratio (females per 1,000 males) among the elderly has been climbing steadily since 1991, with the ratio in the general population stagnating.
- In the northeast and the east, while the sex ratio of the elderly increased, it remained below 1,000 in both years, indicating that men still outnumber the women in these regions even at 60-plus years.
Challenges
- Older women are more likely to be widowed, living alone, with no income and with fewer assets of their own, and fully dependent on family for support.
- The major challenges facing India’s ageing population are the feminisation and ruralisation of this older population and that policies must be designed to suit their specific needs.
- Most States in the southern region and select northern States such as Himachal Pradesh and Punjab reported a higher share of the elderly population than the national average in 2021, a gap that is expected to widen by 2036.
- While States reporting higher fertility rates and lagging in demographic transition, including Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, expect to see an increase in the share of the elderly population between 2021 and 2036.
- Compared with southern and western India, central and northeastern regions have the younger group of States as indicated by the ageing index.
- In the southern region, the old-age dependency ratio (elderly people per 100 people between 15 and 59 years) was higher than the national average at around 20 as is true of western India at 17.
Recommendations
- The report called for a special focus on older persons in disaster-preparedness plans.
- There is a lack of credible data on various issues related to the elderly in India and more could be done by including questions on relevant and emerging issues related to older persons in the upcoming data collection exercises of the National Sample Survey, the National Family Health Survey, and the Census of India, respectively.
- The government must work on increasing awareness about schemes for older persons, bring all Old Age Homes under regulatory purview and focus on facilitating in-situ ageing to the extent possible.
- The government should encourage the creation and running of elderly self-help groups, and stressed the importance of having elderly people live in multigenerational households.
- The government should encourage in situ (at home) ageing as much as possible by creating short-term care facilities like creches or day-care facilities, citing better care when elderly people live with their respective families.
