Rajasthan, Chandigarh best places for senior citizens in Quality of Life: Report

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New Delhi: The government of India released a report on the regional patterns of aging across the Indian States and assessed the overall aging situation in the country. The report presents a deeper insight into how well India is doing to support the well-being of its aging population.

The index created by the Institute for Competitiveness sheds light on an issue often not mentioned- problems faced by the elderly.

'India is often portrayed as a young society, with a consequent demographic dividend. But, as with every country that goes through a fast process of demographic transition, India also has greying cum aging problem,"  said Chairman, EAC-PM, Dr. Bibek Debroy in a statement. 

In the study, Rajasthan topped in the quality of life of elderly people among other states while Chandigarh and Mizoram secured the first place to provide the quality of life to older people among the other UTs and northeastern states respectively.

The index for Quality of Life for the Elderly is based on the four crucial pillars: Financial Well-being, Social Well-being, Health System and Income Security.

Other than the four crucial pillars basic framework of the index also includes Economic Empowerment, Educational Attainment & Employment, Social Status, Physical Security, Basic Health, Psychological well-being, Social Security and Enabling Environment of the elderly.

These pillar-wise analyses help States assess the state of the elderly population and identify existing gaps that obstruct their growth.

Important takeaways from the report: 

The highest national average for the Health System pillar is 66.97 at the all-India level, followed by 62.34 in Social Well-being. 

As per the index, states have performed particularly worse in the Income Security pillar as over half of the States have a score below the national average, i.e., 33.03 in Income Security, which is the lowest across all pillars.

The Financial Well-being score was 44.7, which is lowered by the bad performance of 21 States across the Education Attainment & Employment pillar, which showcases scope for improvement

According to the index, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh are top-scoring regions in Aged and the Relatively Aged States, respectively. 

The Aged States refer to States with an elderly population of more than 5 million, whereas the Relatively Aged States refer to States with an elderly population of less than 5 million.