Status of health wellbeing of elderly population in India: Estimates from nss 75th round household level data

India, being the second most populated country in the world, has experienced a phenomenal threefold increase in the number of elderly population during the past 50 years. The number of elderly people, over the age of 60 years, has almost tripled during this period (Census of India 2011). In a country like India where the distribution of income is extremely uneven, older people, being incapable of earning sufficient income, become extremely vulnerable to afford the awfully high cost of ever-increasing pathological disorders and dysfunctional health conditions. A majority of elderly people in India do not enjoy any old age pension and eventually become dependent upon other family members. Many of them do not even have permanent dwelling places. Under these circumstances, it is extremely important to find out the key dimensions of health and well-being of elderly people in India and construct a composite health and well-being index especially for them in order to design integrated policy measures to influence their life conditions. This study tries to construct an aggregate health and wellbeing index for people aged 60 years and more, combining the aspects of their ordinary ailments, chronic ailments, disabilities, and subjective health assessments, using the Factor Analysis Method. The study also tries to explain the disparities in health and well-being index scores across different elderly individuals on the basis of certain major determinants like demographic characteristics of the households such as household size, sector, religion, caste, gender, status of economic independence, living arrangement, availability of adequate medical facilities, provision of fully or partially free medical services by government or other agencies, reimbursement of medical expenditures by medical insurance companies, etc. For this empirical analysis, the study uses the household-level data of NSS 75th Round Survey which measured The Key Indicators of Social Consumption in India: Health during the period from 2017 to 2018.