Critically examine the effect of globalization on the aged population in India.

India is ageing rapidly: the 60-plus population is about 149 million (10.5 per cent) and is projected to cross 20 per cent by 2050 (UNFPA India Ageing Report, 2023). Globalization has restructured the economy, the family and social values, with sharply mixed consequences for the aged.

Positive effects

• Improved healthcare access: advanced diagnostics, telemedicine and health insurance have raised life expectancy at 60.
• Remittances from children working abroad sustain elderly parents, visibly in Kerala and Punjab.
• A growing silver economy: geriatric care services, senior-living projects and assistive technology create dedicated support structures.
• ICT connectivity (video calls, digital banking) reduces isolation and dependence.

Adverse effects

• Nuclearization of families and out-migration of the young have multiplied empty-nest households, leaving the old physically and emotionally alone.
• Individualist, consumerist values erode filial obligation; HelpAge India surveys report rising elder abuse, often by close family.
• Most of the elderly retired from the informal sector without pensions, so market-driven price rises hit them hardest.
• Feminization of ageing: widowed, asset-less women face the worst insecurity, while rural elderly gain least from globalized services.

Responses such as the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act 2007, IGNOAPS and PMVVY remain modest in coverage, and the digital divide keeps many poor elderly outside globalized services such as telemedicine. Critically viewed, globalization has widened choices for the affluent aged while deepening insecurity for the poor majority; universal social security and community-based care must now substitute what the joint family once provided.