ABSTRACT
India's older adult population grew from 12 million in 1901 to 71 million a century later, nearly a sixfold increase. In India, life expectancy at birth has shown huge gains: For men it rose from 42 years in the 1950s to 58 years in the late 1980s. A brief look at several socioeconomic characteristics —literacy, economic status and labor-force participation, caste, and marital status —round out the picture of population aging in India. Education levels are positively correlated with greater longevity, higher life expectancy at birth, higher economic status, better health, and a greater capacity for self-care in old age. Due to the overall drop in labor-force participation among elders, low rates of pension coverage, and high rates of poverty for Indian families, financial problems are common for the aged. Although some matrilinearity exists in Kerala and among tribal groups, the traditional Indian family is patrilineal, as in much of Asia.
