Role of Hindrise for Helping Disadvantaged Elderly of India

In India, where the incidence of the public provision of old-age care is less, the family system played a key role in protecting the old. Here we looked at the aged’s deprivation in the context of changing intergenerational balance with the rapid growth of the aged. Hindrise Foundation, an NGO working for the disadvantaged elderly of India, is bringing sunlight into the lives of neglected and disadvantaged elderly ones residing in different parts of India.

The elderly can generally a process of growing old and is a component of the life cycle. Essentially, it is a multi-dimensional process and stirs almost every aspect of human life. The study of human aging has typically emphasized demography changes focusing on the ‘aging of population’- a trend that has been characterized industrial societies throughout the 20th century but, in recent decades, has become a worldwide phenomenon. Aging is basically the result of a two-dimensional demographic transformation, explained by overall declines in mortality and fertility.

About the Disadvantaged Elderly of India

Population aging is the most significant consequence of the process known as the demographic transition. Reduction in infertility leads to a decline in the proportion of young people in the population. Coupled with fertility decline also reduces mortality enhances individuals’ life span, leading to higher life expectancy at older ages. In other words, population aging involves a shift from high mortality/high fertility to low mortality/low fertility.

The world’s population stood at around 6.1 billion in the early 21st century and is projected to increase to 9.5 billion in 2050 and 10.5 billion in 2100. However, the growth of the aging population is much higher than that of the general population. The proportion of elderly aged now 60 and above is expected to grow from 9.9 % in 2000 to 14.6 % in 2025 and 21.1 % in 2050, respectively. Among the elderly, the oldest (80+) is likely to increase its proportion from just 1.1 percent to 3.4 percent in 2050 and 7.1 in 2100.

Old Age Deprivation

The older people’s lives are more frequently negatively affected by the social and economic insecurity that has accompanied the demographic and developmental process. The growth of individualism and desire for the young generation’s independence and autonomy affect the status of the elderly. The studies show that older women’s socioeconomic condition is more vulnerable in the context of demographic and socio-cultural change. 

The condition of elderly poverty has been a consistent phenomenon in the World as the older population is deprived of basic needs. The eight factors of deprivation among the elderly are poverty, social inferiority, social isolation, physical weakness, vulnerability, seasonality, powerlessness, and humiliation. Poverty is a major risk of aging in developing countries, and a study by the World Bank reveals that older people are vulnerable in most developing countries.

Economic Aspects of Deprivation

The economic insecurity and deprivation are looking upon the fact that whether elderly are in the position to maintain the minimum living slandered in terms of access to the economic resources which is measured in terms poverty either as the income poverty, subsistence poverty in terms of basic need, capability poverty in terms of dependency. Income poverty is measured in terms of the aged’s ability to maintain a minimum income level. Physical efficiency is maintained and is considered a parameter of deprivation among the aged. 

Economic Insecurity among the aged is also characterized by the denial of the basic needs to maintain a minimum level of living. It is captured in terms of access to medicine, food, and clothing. Among the aged, the denial of the basic needs increases their dependency to lead a minimum level of life. Incapability poverty, an individual’s inability to lead a normal life without impoverishment, is captured.

Various studies across the globe show that the aged’ economic deprivation is one of the common phenomena in almost all the developing countries, which have achieved their targets in the demographic transition. The evidence of more vulnerability to age in the added years of life is visible from existing literature from both the developed and developing world. The researches have shown that the oldest old have the highest chance of poverty in almost all nations. 

The elderly’s high economic dependency of the elderly is one of the signs of deprivation among the aged. It will be high among the elderly in a poor country since they are out of formal social protection. There are various economic aspects of deprivation among India’s aged beyond the purview of poverty analysis such as dependency status, source of financial support, and indebtedness of the disadvantaged elderly of India.

Health Insecurity

Physical and health risk is very high when people are aged. Morbidity risk & lack of access to health care are the factors causing physical and health insecurity among disadvantaged elderly of India. The implications of population aging for future health and health care utilization levels depend on whether it increases in life expectancy experienced in general are accompanied by the increase or decrease in health problems in later life. The elderly are likely to have more health concerns than the rest of the population.

The aging process is likely to be accompanied by changes in the pattern of diseases in the epidemiological tradition. In the past, nations that underwent the same demographic experience have witnessed a change in the pattern of morbidity to chronic and degenerative diseases of heart attack and strokes with a high incidence of mortality in old age.

However, the decline in health is just one of the possible risks associated with old age apart from a prospective fall in income, dependency, and loneliness. It remains one of the dominant concerns among the aged. This is not surprising, as studies have shown that health is one of the crucial factors determining the quality of life among the disadvantaged elderly of India.

Moreover, poor health would be a cause of worry among the disadvantaged elderly of India since illness episodes, in general, have the potential to cause economic shock, leading to financial dependency, loss of autonomy reduced social contact, and loneliness. The health literature clearly shows that a positive relationship exists between age and morbidity among the adults, i.e., at old age, there is a higher prevalence of morbidity, implying that the risk of illness and morbidity is higher among the aged.

Social Insecurity

Social isolation and feeling of loneliness are often considered to be problems of growing older. At this age, many outlive relatives and friends, and social interaction may become very limited as people stay closer to their home because of facing mobility difficulties and increased chronic illness. Older individuals can be more or less dissatisfied with the narrowing of their social network, and for those who get dissatisfied, the result is feeling loneliness. Researchers and practitioners agree that social isolation and social loneliness among older people are often related to living alone and poor health.

Social isolation is the objective measure of social interaction, while social loneliness is considered the subjective expression of dissatisfaction with the low number of social contacts. Social isolation is also sometimes referred to as aloneness or solitude. However, those who are often alone are not necessarily lonely, as solitude can be a personal choice. Social loneliness is also defined as negative feelings about being alone. Studies from West show that the aged are more socially isolated after retirement and their detachment from work.

There is empirical evidence that more than sixty percent of the aged in the OECD countries are in social isolation though they are economically well off. The changing social relations in various countries and the breakdown of their cultural and traditional systems result in a more individualistic society leading to the social isolation of the elderly.

In India, the traditional family set up had been providing social security for the elderly. Studies have shown there is an emergence of social isolation among the aged. This social isolation affects the living pattern of the aged. The problem will be aggravated in the near future as the system undergoes rapid modernization and transformation. 

Role of Hindrise to Help Disadvantaged Elderly of India

• Legal awareness about their rights– We as a Hindrise help the old age people to know about their legal rights. We likely to teach them as they can raise their voice against any offense or mishappening happens to them at this age. 
• Help in earning a livelihood– We also help them in earning their livelihood. Like old age, people already had their skills throughout their lives as we just enhance to use their past skill and motivate them to earn for their basic livelihood. We make them work with less physical activities. 
• Providing old ages homes- Many old age people are deprived of their homes by their own children. They don’t have homes, so they mostly sleep at the roadsides. To help those types of people, Hindrise has already tied up with many old age homes at different locations. So if we found them, we just safely provide a shelter for them. In case you find any old age people with no home, foods, and shelter, just contact us, we are ready to help. 
• Making them understand the importance of life– People mostly get depressed at a very old age, so they do not want to live instead of solving their problems. We just motivate and conduct awareness programs from time to time to keep them away from negativity. Hindrise organizes the program for old age people such as organizing gaming activity, yoga activities, laughing sessions and awareness programs and government scheme related session from them. 

Conclusion

The non-income aspects concerning poverty among the disadvantaged elderly of India are in terms of deprivation. Deprivation is a much broader term than poverty that includes all kinds of denial or being excluded from a minimum standard of living. It is a position in which the people are denied the basic needs, i.e., both economic & social necessities that enhance the capability and, thus, individuals’ wellbeing. 

The aging process is always accompanied by a decline in human beings’ wellbeing that results in the rising economic, health, and social insecurity among the aged. The aged generally suffer from economic dependency, physical immobility, and insecurity in access to health care and social isolation. In the West, most of these insecurities are looked after by the state in social and institutional arrangements.

The disadvantaged elderly of India are generally suffering from economic, health, and social insecurity. The majority of the elderly have been reported to be in bad condition in terms of deprivation measured as generalized deprivation. There exists disparity across states, sex, and sector in the case of different aspects of deprivation. The study also looked at the relative disparity of the incidence of deprivation across sex and sector by taking the percentage of elderly below the state average of the deprived. It is clear that in most of the Indian states; women are disadvantaged compared to men in terms of deprivation in old age.

The relative disadvantage is high in the case of urban areas in comparison to the rural areas in most of the cases. There is high relativity between economic and health components of deprivation and economic and social aspects of deprivation. The levels of deprivations of the elderly are mostly conditioned by the social and demographic characteristics of the disadvantaged elderly of India and the household.