Aging of Indian Women in India: The Experience of Older Women in Formal Care Homes

Abstract

The feminization of aging is a process that has begun in India but is not occurring uniformly throughout India. Older women are more likely to be widowed, poor, and suffer vulnerability to adverse outcomes like poor health. With the changing social landscape of India, middle-income older women are increasingly opting for ‘pay and stay homes’, an emerging type of old age home in India. Majority of the 97 women residents of ‘pay and stay’ homes reported being widowed (68%), and 25% were childless. Childlessness and widowhood were important considerations in the decision to relocate to an old age home. Older women reported higher degrees of psychological closeness and contact with daughters than sons, and the overall social network size was small. High prevalence of diabetes rates among older women carries implications for potential functional disability. Strong advocacy measures for empowering older women in India should be a priority policy directive.

Keywords:

• Asian Indian elderly women
• Indian women
• widowhood
• elder care
• old age homes
• “pay and stay” homes
• aging in India

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project was made possible by a Fulbright research grant awarded to the primary author from the Council for International Exchange of Scholars.

The paper was presented at the joint VIII^th Annual Conference of Indian Academy of Geriatrics and XV Biennial Conference of Association of Gerontology, India, organized as Indian Aging Congress 2010 at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India, November 12–14, 2010.