Socio-Psychological Impact of Neighbourhoods on the Elderly: A Spatial Demographic Analysis of Vadodara City (Gujarat, INDIA)

The rise in the life expectancy level in India and particularly in the urban areas have raised concerns for caring the aged during the post retirement periods. However, not much has been achieved either in the policy front or in arousing consciousness in the public. Specialists belonging to different disciplinary backgrounds have mostly been raising issues pertaining to the macro implications of aging on the economy, society and demography. The socio-psychological implications of aging on the aged segment of the population and social security available for the aged have rather remained a neglected aspect.


The paper takes into account relationships of age with occupation, income, saving, insurance, crime, social problems, physical health, social support systems, retirement planning, cost of living, asset creation, intra family relations etcetera. The variables presented here are used to develop the social security index for the aged in order to undertake the city specific analysis. The study has also addressed the need for right policy perspectives for the aged by the way of suggesting interventions at different levels of government.