ACTIVE AGEING STATUS OF RURAL ELDERLY WOMEN IN TAMIL NADU

Abstract

Ageing is an inevitable change in the lifespan of an individual. India's ageing population has risen from 19 million in 1947 to 100 million in the 21 century. According to the United Nations World Population Ageing report (2015), the world's grey population has increased rapidly from 9.2% in 1990 to 11.7 % in 2013, and is expected to triple by 2050, growing from 737 million to over 2 billion persons 60 years of age and older. Certain regions of the world will experience more rapid population ageing than others. Ageing is a period of physical, mental and social decline which brings a host of challenges to the individual and the family, requiring special attention at all levels micro, meso, and macro of society. The concept of ageing as healthy, positive and successful is being used to help people renew their generally negative attitude to ageing. The new terminology is crucial to sensitize people and effect a change in the minds of senior citizens and of society as a whole. This study aims to understand the level of active ageing among elderly rural women and its impact on the quality of life. Over 330 elderly women from 12 villages of Sriperumbudur, associated with the  Mobile Medical Care of HelpAge India, were interviewed using the census method. The study revealed the following findings: 73.6% of the respondents were between 60 and 70 years of age and 26.4% between 70 and 75 years. A majority of the respondents, at 73.3%, had no formal education. It was interesting to learn that a vast majority of the respondents (83.94%) were self-reliant and 82.73% took care of themselves, especially in terms of their daily routine, without family support. 76.9% of the senior women continued to work, based on their particular competencies, while 75.5% were involved in plenty of physical activity every day, including their individual occupations and household chores, enabling them to be physically active. The chi-square values indicate that there is a significant association between the overall active ageing score, religion, and number of members in the family. Other demographic variables like age, occupation, income, marital status, age at marriage, number of children in the family and socio-economic status were not significantly associated with the overall active aging score.

The p-value of 0.032 shows a significant association between social networks and self-reliance. The research shows, surprisingly, that most of the women studied enjoyed freedom in their families, a positive indicator of active ageing.