Silence or Voice? Agency Freedom among Elderly Women Living in Extended Families in Urban India

Ildikó Asztalos Morell, Santa De, Pravina Mahadalkar, Carl Johansson and Lena-Karin Gustafsson
Additional contact information
Ildikó Asztalos Morell: Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), 75007 Uppsala, Sweden
Santa De: College of Nursing, Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University (BVDU), Pune 411043, India
Pravina Mahadalkar: College of Nursing, Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University (BVDU), Pune 411043, India
Carl Johansson: School of Health, Care and Welfare, Mälardalen University, 72123 Västerås, Sweden
Lena-Karin Gustafsson: School of Health, Care and Welfare, Mälardalen University, 72123 Västerås, Sweden

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 23, 1-18

Abstract: The preferential form of living for the elderly in India is within the extended family. India is undergoing rapid economic development, an increase in mobility, and changes in gender norms due to an increase in women’s labour force participation, which places challenges on traditional intergenerational relationships. Ageing and the well-being of the elderly is a rising concern, especially considering that their proportion of the population is expected to grow rapidly in coming decades. There is a lack of universal state provision for the elderly’s basic needs, which is especially profound for elderly women, since most do not have an independent income. This leaves the elderly dependent upon the benevolence of their adult children’s families or other relatives. This paper explores, with help of narrative analysis and critical contributions from capability theory, elderly women’s agency freedoms and how this can be contextualised with their varying capability sets. With help of Spivak’s notion of the silent subaltern, the paper anchors elderly women’s abilities to voice to their agency freedom. The master narrative of the silent supportive wife and side-lined mother-in-law as well as three counter-narratives explore alternative agencies taken by elderly women.

Keywords: ageing; India; women; narrative; subaltern; Hindu; capability; agency freedom; elderly; family care; care regime (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/23/8779/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/23/8779/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:23:p:8779-:d:451461

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().