An Aging India: Perspectives, Prospects, and Policies
An Aging India: Perspectives, Prospects, and Policies has been co-published simultaneously as Journal of Aging & Social Policy, Volume 15, Numbers 2/3 2003.
An Aging India: Perspectives, Prospects, and Policies
Phoebe S. Liebig, PhD
S. Irudaya Rajan, PhD
Editors
An Aging India: Perspectives, Prospects, and Policies has been co-published simultaneously as Journal of Aging & Social Policy, Volume 15, Numbers 2/3 2003.
An Aging India: Perspectives, Prospects, and Policies has been co-published simultaneously as Journal of Aging & Social Policy, Volume 15, Numbers 2/3 2003.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
An aging India: perspectives, prospects, and policies/Phoebe S. Liebig, S. Irudaya Rajan, editors.
p. ; cm.
Co-published simultaneously as Journal of aging & social policy, volume 15, numbers 2/3 2003.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7890-2239-7 (hard : alk. paper) - ISBN 0-7890-2240-0 (softcover : alk. paper)
1. AgedIndia. 2. AgingIndia. 3. AgedServices forIndia. 4. AgedGovernment policyIndia. [DNLM: 1. AgedIndia. 2. Public PolicyIndia. WT 30 A26855 2003]
I. Liebig, Phoebe S. II. Rajan, S. Irudaya (Sebastian Irudaya), 1959- III. Journal of aging & social policy.
HQ1064.I4A355 2003
2003013523
An Aging India: Perspectives, Prospects, and Policies
CONTENTS
Phoebe S. Liebig, PhD
S. Irudaya Rajan, PhD
S. Irudaya Rajan, PhD
P. Sankara Sarma, PhD
U. S. Mishra, PhD
P. V. Ramamurti, PhD
S. Vijaya Kumar, PhD
Vinod Kumar, MBBS, MD
Indira Jai Prakash, PhD
John van Willigen, PhD
N. K. Chadha, PhD
D. Jamuna, PhD
K. R. Gangadharan, Dip. SSA
Phoebe S. Liebig, PhD
Maneeta Sawhney, MPhil, PhD candidate
P. K. B. Nayar, PhD
S. D. Gokhale, PhD, MSW
ABOUT THE EDITORS
Phoebe S. Liebig, PhD, is Associate Professor of Gerontology and Public Administration at the University of Southern California. She is the author of numerous articles in policy-related journals and is co-editor of two books, one on international aspects of housing and the other on long-term care policies in the state of California. Dr. Liebig is a Fellow of both the Gerontological Society on Aging and the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education.
S. Irudaya Rajan, PhD, is Associate Fellow at the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. Currently he is Coordinator, Population and Development Program, at CDS. Formerly, he was a Doctoral Fellow at the International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, and recipient of the Gold Medal (First Rank) for the best student in Demography during 198283. He is a lead author of the book, India's Elderly: Burden or Challenge?, published by Sage Publications. Currently, he is coordinating a major project on Economics of Pensions in South Asia: Special Focus on India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. He has co-authored/co-edited seven books and several articles in international journals on aging-related issues and has been a consultant for World Bank.
Acknowledgments
As is so often the case, credit for this enterprise goes to many individuals. First, a debt is owed to my father, Marshall Harvey Stone, who inspired a love of India because of his many trips there and who died in Chennai. Special thanks are due to Michael Zarky who accompanied me on my three trips to India and smoothed many paths, especially during the four months of my Fulbright there. Thanks also are due to Vinaya Mehrohtra, whose visit to southern California in the mid-1990s helped trigger my research topic, and to his many associates in Mumbai. Special accolades go to the staff at the Center for Research on Ageing and the Department of Psychology at Sri Venkateswara University in Tirupati, especially Drs. P. V. Ramamurti and D. Jamuna and then research assistant, now Dr. K. Lalitha.
Additional acknowledgements are made of the intellectual and practical help provided by numerous Indian colleagues and friends, particularly T. K. Nair, M. S. Kulkarni, Parul Dave, John Kottakayam, P. K. Muttagi, T. V. Ramprasad, Indira Khadambi and her family, Dr. Alladi Ramakrishnan and his family, the Joseph family of Chennai, and several Aurovillians in Pondicherry; the Fulbright program staff in the United States and New Delhi; various practitioners, state and national policymakers and ordinary folk who shared their views about aging in India; and the leaders of more than 20 aging advocacy groups and non-governmental organizations, especially HelpAge India personnel in Bangalore, Calcutta, Chennai (Madras), Delhi, Kochi (Cochin), Madurai, and Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum).
Finally, particular thanks go to my co-guest editor, S. Irudaya Raj an, without whose persistence and being our man in India this project would never have been completed; to all our authors who responded with grace and fortitude to the requests of multiple reviewers; to Francis Caro and Robert Morris, co-editors of the Journal of Aging & Social Policy, who saw the merit of this project; and last, but certainly not least, to the two managing editors, first Jill Norton, and then Robert Geary, for their constant help and encouragement, despite the lengthy gestation of this project.
Phoebe S. Liebig
Editor
Phoebe S. Liebig, PhD
University of Southern California
S. Irudaya Rajan, PhD
Centre for Development Studies
Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India
This volume is the result of ideas developed in several communications between the two co-editors, Drs. Liebig and Rajan, after completion of Liebig's Fulbright to India in 1997. By the late fall of 1998, a proposal to create a special book on aging in India was accepted by the
