Population Aging in India: Facts, Issues, and Options

Arunika Agarwal (), Alyssa Lubet (), Elizabeth Mitgang, Sanjay Mohanty () and David Bloom
Additional contact information
Arunika Agarwal: Harvard School of Public Health
Alyssa Lubet: Harvard School of Public Health
Elizabeth Mitgang: Harvard School of Public Health
Sanjay Mohanty: International Institute for Population Sciences

No 10162, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: India, one of the world's two population superpowers, is undergoing unprecedented demographic changes. Increasing longevity and falling fertility have resulted in a dramatic increase in the population of adults aged 60 and up, in both absolute and relative terms. This change presents wide-ranging and complex health, social, and economic challenges, both current and future, to which this diverse and heterogeneous country must rapidly adapt. This chapter first lays out the context, scope, and magnitude of India's demographic changes. It then details the major challenges these shifts pose in the interconnected areas of health, especially the massive challenges of a growing burden of noncommunicable diseases; gender, particularly the needs and vulnerabilities of an increasingly female older adult population; and income security. This chapter also presents an overview of India's recent and ongoing initiatives to adapt to population aging and provide support to older adults and their families. It concludes with policy recommendations that may serve as a productive next step forward, keeping in mind the need for urgent and timely action on the part of government, private companies, researchers, and general population.

Keywords: population aging; economic demography; longevity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J11 J14 N30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2016-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp10162.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Population Aging in India: Facts, Issues, and Options (2016)
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:iza:izadps:dp10162

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().