Demographic Downside

The famed ‘dividend’ is destined to age and India’s elderly population will grow dramatically by mid-century. While branded corporate eldercare is thriving, the welfare of senior citizens remains a quiet crisis

- Romita Datta

Defying the wind and chill of the Sundarbans delta, a group of about 30 men and women are huddled over a bonfire. They’re singing along to old, half-forgotten tunes. There’s some clapping, some camaraderie over whiskey glasses. This night out by the Matla river is the highlight of a short holiday for these septuagenarians and octogenarians, residents of Thikana Shimla, the Kolkata old-age home that organises these biannual retreats. It’s a welcome distraction from the debilitating effects of ageing, the aches and pains, the impaired hearing, the myopia, even dementia and depression.

For all the talk of India’s demographic dividend, its bulging youth population, the country is also greying rapidly. According to a 2016 report by the ministry for statistics and programme implementation, India has 103.9 million elderly, people above age 60, about 8.5 percent of the population. These numbers are reliant on the 2011 census. The elderly population has grown at about 3.5 percent per year, double the rate for the population as a whole; a 2014 report by the non-profit HelpAge India shows that while India will be the youngest country in the world by 2020, by 2050, as many as 325 million people, or 20 percent of the population, will be ‘elderly’. While the overall population of India will have grown by about 40 percent between 2006 and 2050, the report adds, the elderly population will have grown by 270 percent.