Women and Ageing: Invisible or Empowered, a recent report based on a study by HelpAge India, brought attention to the suffering of older Indian women.
Key Points:
• The study found that over 50% of elderly women couldn’t read or write and were mistreated. Disrespect and mental abuse were the most common ways that the elderly were treated badly.
• A poll of 7500 older women in 20 states was used to make the study.
Findings of the study:
• HelpAge India asked women over 60 in 20 states, including Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Odisha, two Union Territories, Delhi and Chandigarh, and five metros, including Chennai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad.
• The study showed that more than half of the older women in India have never worked. Most of them live with their families, and half of them can’t read or write.
• A little more than half (54%) of the women surveyed were married. The other half were widows, which made their mental and physical abuse even worse.
• 52% of these women said that an older person had hurt them, and 16% of them had been hurt physically. Most of the women who were questioned felt like they were treated differently because they were widows. Even more of them said that otters helped them make important choices.
• For most of the other women, their health was a big problem. About half of them had at least one long-term illness, and 64% of them did not have health insurance.
• In the digital age, 24% of older women felt that the time spent with them by their children wasn’t enough.
• The report talked about what should be done to help older women with chronic illnesses. It said that technology-based health solutions should be pushed, and that abuse should be dealt with through large-scale campaigns.
• The study said that between 2015 and 2030, the world’s population of people over 60 is expected to grow by about 56%. This means that by 2030, people over 60 will make up almost 17% of the world’s population, or about 1.4 billion people. In 2021, 11 percent of all women are over 60, and by 2031, 14 percent of all women will be over 60.That is, 10 billion of the 72 billion.
