Quality of Life for Elderly Index – Burning Issues – Free PDF Download

Quality of Life for Elderly Index.

• Recently, the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) released the Quality of Life for Elderly Index.
• The share of elders, as a percentage of the total population in the country, is expected to increase from around 7.5% in 2001 to almost 12.5% by 2026, and surpass 19.5% by 2050.
• EAC-PM is a non-constitutional, non-statutory, independent body constituted to give advice on economic and related issues to the Government of India, specifically to the Prime Minister.

• The Index has been created by the Institute for Competitiveness at the request of EAC-PM and it sheds light on an issue often not mentioned- problems faced by the elderly.

• Institute for Competitiveness, India is an international initiative centered in India, dedicated to enlarging and purposeful disseminating of the body of research and knowledge on competition and strategy.

• It identifies the regional patterns of ageing across Indian States and assesses the overall ageing situation in India.
  • Ageing is a continuous, irreversible, universal process, which starts from conception till the death of an individual.
  • However, the age at which one’s productive contribution declines and one tends to be economically dependent can probably be treated as the onset of the aged stage of life.
  • National Elderly Policy defines people in the 60+ age group as elderly.
• It will  promote healthy competition among States through fair rankings and highlights the pillars and indicators they can improve.
• Pillars & Sub-Pillars of the Index: 
  • Four Pillars: 
    • Financial Well-being, Social Well-being, Health System and Income Security
  • Eight Sub-Pillars: 
    • Economic Empowerment, Educational Attainment & Employment, Social Status, Physical Security, Basic Health, Psychological Well being, Social Security and Enabling Environment.
• Major Findings:State-wise Rankings:
  • Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh are top-scoring regions in Aged and Relatively Aged States, respectively.
    • The Aged States refer to States with an elderly population of more than 5 million, whereas Relatively Aged States refer to States with an Elderly population of less than 5 million.
  • Chandigarh and Mizoram are top-scoring regions in Union Territory and North-East States category. 

• Challenges:Feminization of Ageing:
  • One of the emerging issues of population ageing is the “Feminization of Ageing”, that is many more women than men reaching older ages.
• Income security:
  • India has one of the weakest social security mechanisms globally as it only spends 1% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on pensions.
• India is often portrayed as a young society, with a consequent demographic dividend. But, as with every country that goes through a fast process of demographic transition, India also has a greying cum aging problem. 
• For the welfare and care for the older persons, we must focus on the protection of already existing social support systems/traditional social institutions such as family and kinship, neighborhood bonding, community bonding and community participation must be revived and kins should show sensitivity towards elderly citizens.
• India is currently enjoying the demographic dividend but will be growing older, with persons above the age of 65 becoming the fastest-growing age group by 2050.
• Greying is not very rapid in India, as only 8.6 pc of its population are elderly. However, by 2050 the elderly population will grow by three times to 319 million, accounting for 19.5 pc of the total population.

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