"CHAPTER 1INTRODUCTION1.1 Demographic profile of the elderly in IndiaOver a period of time, life expectancy has increased in India for both males andfemales. This has been possible due to improvement in public health and medicalfacilities which has prevented many deadly diseases, along with reduction infertility rates. In 1970-75, life expectancy at birth for males was 52 years whichincreased to 62 years in the period of 2002-06 and forecasts suggests that it wouldbe around 67 years in 2011-16 whereas the same for females was only 49 years in1970-75 and rose to 65 years in the period of 2002-06 and predictions suggest thatit would be around 69 years in 2011-16. (CSO, 2011)Chart 1: Life expectancy at birth over yearsThis increase in life expectancy has led to an increase in the number of personsabove 60 years of age. There were only 12 million persons in 60+ age groups in1901, which increased to 76 million in 2001. Technical group on populationprojections (1996) projection suggests that around 100 million would be reached in16 2013. A similar projection by United Nations (1996) has revealed that India willhave 198 million and 326 million in 2020 and 2050 respectively. (ibid)Chart 2: Age distribution of population in India over decades On categorization of Indian population into three broad groups i.e. 0-14, 15-59 and60 & above, we find that the proportion of population in both working age- groupas well as old age group is increasing rapidly whereas that of children is falling. In1991 population census, elder population was 6.7% of total population and thisfigure is projected to rise by more than 10 % of total population in 2011 ( Chart 2 ).Also if we analyze the old age population by the place of residence then it hasalways been higher in rural areas than that in urban areas (Chart 3) (ibid).17 Chart 3: Percentage share of Elderly in total population by place of residenceThe decadal growth of elderly population vis-à-vis that of general population againconfirms that the old age population has rapidly increased in India since 1951 andit has always grown at a much higher rate than that of general population. It wasgrowing at a faster rate of 33.7% in 1961 to 1981 and slightly declined to 25.2% in1991-2001 but still outpacing the growth rate of the general population. (ibid)Chart 4: Decadal growth of elderly population18 1.2 Demographic highlights in India 1950-2050Table 1: increase in the proportion of the older population in Asia, 1950- 2050In 1950, both China and Vietnam had highest old age population in Asia i.e. 7.5%and 7%respectively. However, over a period of 100 years, all the countriesmentioned below will have an older population proportion of above 20%. Thailandwill have the highest increase in its growth of elder population and India?s old agepopulation will be quadrupled; constituting around 20% of the total population(table1). (SPSS, 2009)Chart 5: Increase in proportion of older population in Asia, 1950-205019 "