English  Français

Biodemographic and Socio-economic Determinants of Mortality among Indian Older Adults: Evidence from a Panel Study

Ronak Paul, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Rashmi Rashmi, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

With the ageing population, a parallel responsibility of improving the mortality condition and quality of life becomes imminent. While the pace of population ageing first started in the high-income countries, 80% of the older population is expected to live in low-and-middle-income countries by 2050. The majority of the existing literature on mortality in India is concerned with the population of child, adolescent, youth and adults. Therefore, this study tried to explore the biodemographic and socio-economic determinants of elderly mortality using a nationally representative survey in India. This study used round-I and round-II of the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) and is based on the data of 16,909 elderly nested within 12,858 households who were nested within 2,352 communities. The multivariate analysis involved estimating the random-intercept Weibull proportional hazard model with three levels, individual (level 1), family (level 2), and community (level 3). Preliminary analysis showed that the risk of mortality was higher among male and widowed older adults respectively. Further, the elderly in the oldest-old age group and suffering from chronic diseases had a higher hazard of mortality.

Keywords: Biodemography and genetics, Mortality, Population ageing, Event history analysis

See extended abstract.

  Presented in Session P10.