The core of the research reported in this study was a survey of
men and women 55 years and older sampled from a comprehensive list
of residents. The authors asked questions about social networks,
control over household assets, household composition, life
satisfaction, and subjective health, among other things. The social
network questions had been used in an earlier study done in
Kentucky. Nearly everything else had been developed for the Delhi
study. The findings were similar to those in the earlier study: the
size of people's networks does not decline materially until they
are older (80 plus). Age itself did not seem that important, but
health was crucial. Persons who reported they were healthy had
larger networks.
As one might expect, joint family life has great impact on the
nature of social life among older people. This has to do with the
big difference in the situation of men and women in India. In
addition to being patrilineal kin groups, joint families are
dominated by male economic interests. The males as a collective
group inherit property. Women have much less control of household
assets. This ethnographic fact appeared very clearly in the answers
to questions about participation in household decision making. High
involvement in decisions, which the authors construed as a measure
of power, spilled over into other aspects of the social aging
process. Persons who were powerful in their households tended to
have large networks, better subjective health, and much higher life
satisfaction. They also tended to be men. The women tended to have
small networks, low life satisfaction, lower subjective health, and
less power. These differences between men and women were all
substantial and highly significant. Gender is an extraordinarily
important factor in the outcomes of social aging processes in
India.
General
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