National Human Development Report: 2001 - Indira Gandhi Institute ...

92SOME OTHER ASPECTS OF WELL-BEINGNATIONAL HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2001Women surviving theirspouses are likely to liveabout 6.5 years as widows.At present, this is onetenthof the female lifeexpectancy at birth.with the rising number of the old persons and their changing socioeconomicand physical context, the proportion of the destitute among themmay also, perhaps, be rising. Unfortunately, despite destitution being acritical social dimension of the problem of aging, the database on it is quiteinadequate at present.Elderly WidowsAn aspect of the aging problem, on which some data is available relatesto the widows among the elderly females. The number of widows among theelderly is about three and a half times more than the number of widowers.While the percentage of widowers among the elderly males was about 15 percent, the widows among the elderly females were as high as 54 per cent as perthe 1991 Census. More importantly at present, on an average, women of age60 years are expected to live 1.8 years longer than males. This, coupled withthe average age difference between men and women at the time of marriage,results in a situation where women surviving their spouses are likely to liveabout 6.5 years as widows. This is about one-tenth of the prevalent femalelife expectancy at birth and, more importantly, about 40 per cent of lifeexpectancy of an elderly woman in the country. Thus, the time spent by theelderly women as a widow is considerable. The women in the States ofKarnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and West Bengal are likely to spend moreyears as widows than in other States, as differences in the male-femalemarriage age in these States are much larger.Old-Age Dependency RatioThe old age dependency ratio, defined as the number of persons in theage group 60 years and above, per 100 persons in the age group 15-59 yearsis a useful indicator for looking at the elderly within the population. Theold age dependency ratio has increased marginally from about 12.04 percent in 1981 to 12.19 per cent in 1991, being somewhat higher for femalesthan for the males. This ratio is much higher in rural areas at 13.16 per centin comparison to 9.66 per cent in the urban areas. It could, partly, beexplained by the migration of individuals in the age group 15-59 to urbanareas, leaving the elderly in the villages. At the State level, Haryana,Himachal Pradesh, Kerala and Punjab have a high old age dependencyratio. It is relatively lower in the North-Eastern region, the UnionTerritories of Delhi, Chandigarh, Andaman & Nicobar Islands,Lakshadweep, Dadra and Nagar Haveli.Any increase in the old age dependency ratio implies that an increasingnumber of the elderly, generally with altered physiological, psychological orsometimes even professional capabilities and with reduced workparticipation rates have to depend more and more on the population in theworking age group for support. This could have serious implications for thewell-being of the elderly at household level. A survey conducted by theNSSO on the elderly in 1995-96 estimated that 30 per cent of the males and70 per cent of the females were economically fully dependent on others. Thisincidence of old age dependence was significantly higher in case of femalesin West Bengal, Punjab, Assam, Haryana and Gujarat and marginally morefor males in Karnataka, Punjab, and Andhra Pradesh in comparison to thenational average.