In/dependence, Intergenerational Uncertainty, and the Ambivalent State: Perceptions of Old Age Security in India

Abstract

This essay examines competing perspectives on old age security within contemporary Indian families and society. Ideas and policies concerning old age security are intricately connected to broader cultural meanings and values—surrounding personhood, the life course, family moral systems, and perceptions of the very nature and identity of a wider society and nation. The family in India has long been viewed as the central site of ageing and elder care, yet there is a widespread perception that family-centred elder care is on the decline. Market-based options such as for-pay old age homes are on the rise among the solvent urban middle classes, along with discourses emphasising the need for older individuals to rely on themselves. At the same time, recent parental care legislation and limited state-funded social security programs emphasise that family care is best. Confronting such developments, this essay explores competing Indian perspectives on: where is the best site of elder care: the family, the market, the state, or the individual? The aim is not only to illuminate important values, practices and policies being contested and fashioned in India today, but also to subject ostensibly a-cultural international models of old age security to cross-cultural scrutiny.