We investigate the association between the multigenerational household context and health of older adults in India, taking into account potential selection effects. Using data from the India Human Development Survey ( 2004–05 ), a nationally representative multitopic data set, we employed a two-step analytical strategy—logistic regression followed by propensity score stratification method—to model the effect of contrasting living arrangement types on short-term illness. Overall, older adults living in multigenerational households have the lowest levels of short-term illness. Among them, those who live with their spouse, adult children, and young grandchildren experience the highest health gains. Health advantage diminishes when older adults live only with a spouse and adult children, and further diminishes when they live only with their spouse. Solitary living is associated with the highest likelihood of short-term morbidity. Good health is also shown to be associated with household wealth, gender, household size, and urban residence. Our study demonstrates that multigenerational households—the traditional and the most dominant form of living arrangement in India—have protective health benefits for older adults, while taking into account potential selection mechanisms. On Contrary to some epidemiological studies, we do not find any elevated risk of exposure to short-term illness, when older adults are living in households with young grandchildren.

It is surprising that although 12 million people in India suffer from epilepsy this remains a thoroughly under-researched area in the sociology of health and practice. We address this intellectual and policy neglect by reviewing the social, psychological and legal challenges governing the lives of people living with epilepsy (PWE) by paying particular attention to negotiations in arranged marriages and employment. Drawing on the analytical frameworks of the sociological study of stigma, critical race theory and paying attention to the cultural models of health and suffering, this study utilized a combination of (online) survey data (N = 100) and in-depth qualitative interviews (N = 10) with PWE and their families. The online survey was administered to map the level of awareness about epilepsy and its clinical management among the general population, whereas the in-depth interviews were conducted to understand the experience, self-perception and everyday struggles of those diagnosed with the condition. Findings from the survey on non-PWE suggest a general lack of awareness and fearful misconceptions around epilepsy related seizures. In-depth interviews with PWEs revealed concealment (of the illness) as a dominant coping strategy to attenuate the social alienation and rejection associated with epilepsy. Further, PWE participants reported persistent discrimination, harassment and prejudiced understanding of diminished cognitive capacities at workplaces as a result of cultural myths and popular representations of epilepsy-related seizures. The study also demonstrated the significance of institutional support groups in assisting PWE to cope with symbolic violence and forge solidarities. We conclude with reflections on the ethical dilemmas faced by medical practitioners while dealing with social-medical interventions of epilepsy treatment. Overall, results from this study undergird the significance to revisit the social-moral as well as legal frameworks that persistently restrict opportunities for PWE in India. In an attempt to reimagine inclusive futures regardless of disease, disability and affliction, we attempt to move beyond the biomedical gaze and instead privilege stories of individual personhood, struggles and aspirations.

This article aims to understand the complex interactions of family and intergenerational relationships in an emerging city in India. Demographic work on population ageing in India has primarily focused on family structure, health outcomes and institutional living. Though the focus of these studies has been on the Indian family, surprisingly, an in-depth study of the complex dialectic of the intergenerational relationships is often missing from the gerontological literature. Drawing from in-depth qualitative interviews in the city of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, this article unsettles the assumptions around filial obligation and intergenerational support. In particular, the study shows that the intergenerational social contract is mediated by the economic dependence of the ageing parents on their adult children. Our observations lend support to the construct of ambivalence (coexistence of conflict and affection) that is suggested by the dominant social-psychological paradigm of intergenerational solidarity-conflict. Additionally, the article underscores cultural meanings of identity, gender ideology and role continuity among older Indians.

In this piece, I outline the possibility of understanding old age through the lens of cultural gerontology highlighting the intersecting logics of age with consumption, leisure and identity. I argue that with rising affluence and demographic aging, India is poised to experience an emergent cultural movement, the Third Age (Laslett, 1989), wherein access to cultural capital and an active participation in a leisure culture will offer social membership among upper middle class older adults. Using examples from luxury senior housing projects and travel/holiday packages, I reflect how this process of agentic consumerism with a focus on the ideals of youthfulness, choice, self-expression and pleasure is turning the decline narrative (typically associated with “natural” aging) on its head. The success of this market-driven cultural model, I argue, lies in the celebration of a project on the self where the responsibility to “age well” rests with the individual-a key political economy of the neoliberal regime-absolving the state of public provisions and social security. In conclusion, I show how age and political masculinity intersect to create, what I call, Brand Modi- a potent vision of active and age-ambiguous consumer citizenry. Through this construction, I argue, life-stage has been suitably marketed to match the aspirations of a greying cohort marking a new stage in the cultural constitution of age in urban India.

Drawing from an interview based household survey of 453 older parent(s) and adult children (sons and daughters-in-law) in the Ahmedabad district, this study utilised the solidarity-conflict-ambivalence models to understand both the perceptions and experience of joint living. Overall, findings reinforce popular imagination of the socially-sanctioned joint family as a site of reassuring continuity with high levels of congruence in reporting relational sentiments. Evidence of intergenerational stake phenomenon was observed in responses of older adults when compared with the mature child. In addition to examining normative ambivalence, I contend that joint family relations embody a concept of ‘ambiguity’ – an uncertain, somewhat conflictual emotive space that offers members a temporary escape without confronting the contradictions in the objective demands of expected roles. In conclusion, I assert the need to go beyond the western tools of measurement to capture a deeply complex emotive space with its regularities, irrationalities and incoherences in the experience of everyday life.

Although ICPD brought about an international consensus on the centrality of women’s empowerment and gender equity as desired national goals, the conceptualization and measurement of empowerment in demography and economics have been largely understood in a relational and in a family welfare context where women’s altruistic behaviour within the household is tied either to developmental or child health outcomes. The goals of this study were twofold: (1) to offer an empirical examination of the household level empowerment measure through the theoretical construct of self-compassion and investigate its association with antenatal health, and (2) to ensure robust psychometric quality for this new measure. Drawing data from the nationally representative, multi-topic dataset of 42, 152 households, India Human Development Survey, IHDS II (2011–2012), the study performed a confirmatory factor analysis followed by an OLS estimation to investigate the association between a self-compassionate based empowerment and antenatal care. Empowerment was shown to be positively and significantly associated with antenatal care with significant age and education gradient. A woman’s married status, her relation to the household head and joint family residence created conditions of restricted freedom in terms of her mobility, decision making and sociality. The empowerment measure showed inconsistent associations with social group affiliations and household wealth. The study provided an intellectual starting point to rethink the traditional formulations of empowerment by foregrounding its empirical measure within the relatively unexplored area of social psychology. In the process it addressed measurement gaps in the empowerment-health debate in India and beyond.