Poverty Among Elderly in India

Using consumption expenditure data of the National Sample Survey 2004–2005, this paper estimates the size of elderly poor and tests the hypotheses that elderly households are not economically better-off compared to non-elderly households in India. Poverty estimates are derived under three scenarios—by applying the official cut-off point of the poverty line to household consumption expenditure (unadjusted), consumption expenditure adjusted to household size and consumption expenditure adjusted to household composition. Results show that an estimated 18 million elderly in India are living below the poverty line. On adjusting the consumption expenditure to household size and composition, there are no significant differences in the incidence of poverty among elderly and non-elderly households in India. This is in contrast to the notion that elderly households are better off than non-elderly households in India. Based on the findings, we suggest that the age dimension should be integrated into social policies for evidence based planning.