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- Author or Editor: Martin Hyde x
- Care and Caring x
India’s ageing population is growing rapidly; over 60s constitute 7% of the total population and this is projected to triple in the next four decades.
Drawing on a wide range of studies, this book examines living arrangements across India and their impact on the care and wellbeing of older people. Addressing access to welfare initiatives and changing cultural norms including co-residence, family care and migration, it reveals the diversity of living arrangements, cultural customs and the welfare issues facing older adults in India.
This book offers a crucial examination for practitioners, researchers and policymakers seeking to understand and develop the infrastructure required to meet the needs of older people in India.
Living arrangements and the provision of care for older people in India have been affected by migration. This is particularly salient given that Indian diaspora is the largest in the world. Hence, one can expect the trends in transnational migration to have a particular impact in the Indian context. However, and perhaps more importantly, the chapter will explore the patterns of internal migration within India. This is an important corrective to the focus on transnational migration as levels of internal migration far outweigh the extent of international migration. Therefore, this chapter examines both internal and international migration to understand how families establish, maintain and retain transnational and transregional care relations. In so doing, we draw on 1) theories of migration, 2) global chains of care and 3) life course theories to frame how migration decisions are related to life-course transitions and care provision. The life-course approach focuses on life events and transitions of individuals and the ways in which these events define their life trajectories. In particular, we will draw on the concept of ‘linked-lives’ to show how older people’s life-course transitions, for example going into care, are linked to the migration decisions of their offspring. With increasing urbanisation and migration we will see emerging trends of global and transregional chains of care to supplant and complement care deficits for vulnerable populations left behind, especially older adults.
The final chapter draws together the main issues and findings from the wealth of information presented in the previous chapters and reflect on what this means for researchers, social care providers and policy makers in India and elsewhere. Although each chapter makes a unique contribution to our understanding of the impact of the changing living arrangements on the care for older people in India, there are a number of common themes that connect them. 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.
India has one of the most rapidly ageing populations on the planet. There is concern that this rate of population ageing, coupled with the decline of extended families, decreasing fertility rates, increasing life expectancy, widowhood, singlehood or strained intergenerational relationships, will have a negative impact on the availability of (family-based) care for older adults in India, resulting in poorer health and well-being. However, India is a complex and diverse country made up of different states, castes, cultures, and ethnic groups. Moreover, rates of population ageing are not uniform as Indian states are at diverse levels of demographic transition and vary to a great extent in their cultural practices, social norms and socio-political contexts. Indeed, while India’s older adult population has now risen to 8.57 per cent, in states such as Goa and Kerala the percentage of older adults is as high as 11.20 per cent and 12.55 per cent respectively. This introduction provides an overview of these issues by situating the subsequent chapters within the broad demographic trends already mentioned and gives an outline of the structure and chapters of the book. This chapter introduces the need for focus on living arrangements and care and highlight the social, economic and cultural contexts that shape the provision of care for older adults in India.
