Senior citizens are increasingly finding themselves financially insecure, pushing them to want to work as long as possible, a survey by HelpAge India, across 22 cities in the country, found.
However, the survey, Bridge the Gap: Understanding Elder Needs, revealed that senior citizens in Bengaluru were relatively financially secure, probably owing to more elders working.
The report was released by Halappa Achar, Minister for Women and Child Development, Empowerment of Differently Abled and Senior Citizens on the occasion of ‘World Elder Abuse Awareness Day’ on Wednesday.
While 52% of respondents across the country reported their income was inadequate, 79% of the respondents in Bengaluru said they were financially secure.
While 71% of elders are not working across the country, 44.5% in Bengaluru were working, second only to Dehradun where 54.5% were found working.
The study further found that 48.5% elders said they had access to employment opportunities and 33% said they were willing to work after retirement.
The survey found a majority of elders, 45%, found work from home as the best suited for them to be employed, and 34% asked for “more respect be given to the working elderly” and even suggested increasing the retirement age to help them.
However, the survey is careful to add that it reports the situation amongst the urban middle class, the plight of the poor urban and rural elderly, many who do not have proper support or adequate income or pension, was a moot question.
“HelpAge India has been advocating for a universal pension of ₹3,000 a month, so that every senior citizen can live life with dignity. The need to close this gap is more urgent now than ever, post the pandemic,” it said in the report.
Meanwhile, the Bengaluru City Elders Helpline, 1090, started in 2002, celebrated its 20th anniversary on Wednesday. The helpline till date received 2,35,541 distress calls, of which 10,591 were registered as complaints and 69% of these cases have been resolved. A majority of these complaints pertained to harassment or cheating by family members.
An analysis of the distress calls and complaints over the last 20 years has revealed that the elderly are not aware of the precautionary measures to be taken to prevent abuse, prompting the Nightingales Medical Trust, which runs the helpline along with the Bengaluru police, to come out with a booklet guiding senior citizens on financial management to their personal security, said S. Premkumar Raja, co-founder, NMT.
