Social and Health Status of Aged People of Ahmedabad

The phenomenon of population ageing is becoming a major concern of the world. India’s older population will increase dramatically over the next four decades. The policy of India defines senior citizen or elderly as a person who is of age 60 year or above the older people have main two problems i.e. Social status and Health. As a social scientist, it is interesting to know about the social status and health of old people.

This paper is an empirical survey of 60-70 years old people of Ahmedabad. The main objectives of this paper is to know the primary information of aged people, their social and health status and problems related to social status and health.

The purposive sample of 250 old people was selected from different parts of Ahmedabad.

The interview schedule was designed as a tool of data collection.

This paper is divided in four parts. The first part introduces the situational analysis of old population of India and sociological concept of status, power and health etc. The second part is on methodology. The third part consists of data analysis and discussion of the survey and final part is on findings and suggestions.

The study reveals that till today most of the old people have lived in joint family. Some have lost their partner. They depend on their children for living. They spend their leisure time in religious and social activities. Most of the respondents’ health is good, their health problems are related with age. They feel loss of status in social group.

The study makes a number of recommendations for corrective action.