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Elderly Migration in India: Pattern, Characteristics and their Reasons for Migration

Vasim Ahamad, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

Abstract: older population face many challenges by migration in health care and social welfare systems, which require adjusting policies in both departure and destination communities. The living environment of older people presents both push and pull factors that could have influenced their migration decision. Identifying these factors will help policymakers to understand the issues confronting older migrants and in creating ageing-friendly initiatives that help older adults successfully age in place. The main objectives of this paper are to examine the pattern, characteristics and reasons for elderly migration in India. For the analysis of migration data used census data of India. Simple statistics like rate, percentage, and ratio used in the present study, also used Arc Gis for making maps. More than half of the elder populations in India are migrants, but it is less than young age migration in terms of total numbers. 70% of migrants are non-workers and only 23% of migrants are main workers. The dominating reasons for elderly migration are moved with household, others and marriage. The migration at later-life is determined by later-life movement, so a better understanding of elderly migration of any particular region is helpful for policymakers in various aspects of development.

Keywords: Internal migration, Population ageing, Migrant populations, Older adults

See extended abstract.

  Presented in Session P6.