SCION’S CARE MAKES ELDERS HEALTHY: A Study of Differential in the Care and Support and its Impact on Wellbeing of Elderly in India.

According to intergeneration flow of wealth theory of J.C. Cadwell (1976), the decision of having high fertility in the developing countries is very rational from the point of view of the elderly as they are a long-lasting support system to their parents. With rapid modernization of our society children are no longer the fixed-deposit of support of elderly even in a country like India. Isolation and helplessness have become the part and parcel of life of elderly even in modern India. This paper is an effort to quantify the level of care and support provided by the children to the elderly of the country and how this finally affects their well-being through their subjective health. The data of the recent project of UNFPA, named “Building Knowledge Base on Aging in India” is being used. Multinomial logit estimation is used, where marginal effect shows that quality of care is fast decreasing and augurs an abject state of well-being of elderly. With the expected bulge of elderly population in the coming decades, government must take some steps in advance to combat with this situation. In the light of empirical results, some policy prescription has been suggested for benefit of the elderly.