Our study demonstrates that multigenerational households--the traditional and the most dominant form of living arrangement in India--have protective health benefits for older adults, while taking into account potential selection mechanisms. On Contrary to some epidemiological studies, we do not find any elevated risk of exposure to short-term illness, when older adults are living in households with young grandchildren.
In this piece, I outline the possibility of understanding old age through the lens of cultural gerontology highlighting the intersecting logics of age with consumption, leisure and identity. I argue that with rising affluence and demographic aging, India is poised to experience an emergent cultural movement, the Third Age (Laslett, 1989), wherein access to cultural capital and an active participation in a leisure culture will offer social membership among upper middle class older adults. Using examples from luxury senior housing projects and travel/holiday packages, I reflect how this process of agentic consumerism with a focus on the ideals of youthfulness, choice, self-expression and pleasure is turning the decline narrative (typically associated with “natural” aging) on its head. The success of this market-driven cultural model, I argue, lies in the celebration of a project on the self where the responsibility to “age well” rests with the individual-a key political economy of the neoliberal regime-absolving the state of public provisions and social security. In conclusion, I show how age and political masculinity intersect to create, what I call, Brand Modi- a potent vision of active and age-ambiguous consumer citizenry. Through this construction, I argue, life-stage has been suitably marketed to match the aspirations of a greying cohort marking a new stage in the cultural constitution of age in urban India.
As the population of older adults in India grows, research is needed to plan a sustainable future for India's older adults. This article reports results from a Global Positioning System (GPS)-based pilot study that examined the mobility of middle-class, older adults living in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. Using mobility as a lens through which to examine the lives of older adults, we map potential research and identify policy areas of interest considering older adults in urban India. The study explores the role of life stage in mobility as well as the effects of gender and urban environment on mobility. Using this distinctive perspective on day-to-day life, we propose themes through which, using policy and planning tools, the living environments of older adults in Indian cities can be improved. These policy measures include focusing on walkability and pedestrian safety in residential areas and building on existing mixed land use to create high accessibility to goods and services in urban environments.
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