For verification of this paper, please visit on http://www.socialresearchfoundation.com/shinkhlala.php#8

Author would like to introduce his paper with two important facts-First Women are the largest vulnerable groups who are in disadvantageous positions all over the globe. If we go through the data related to gender wise access to health facility & education, participation in work force & decision making process, this needs no clarification. Second, women live longer than men. Why it is so, it is difficult to infer because this doesn't come within sociological research domain. But, many physiological researches confirm this fact. In most of the developed nations, women live longer than men by four to eight years. But situation in India is not in correspondence with the later. In India, 60+ populations are more than 100 millions (which constitute 8.3% of the whole population) and according to a projection this will goes up to 300 million by 2050 and in terms of percentage, it will constitute approximately 20% of the whole population. Biologically, women live longer than men. This means that life expectancy at birth is higher for women than men. India also confirms this global trend but very poorly with comparison to developed and some developing nations. According to Family welfare statistics in India, 2011, life expectancy at birth for female is only 64.4 years compared to 62.6 years for their male counterparts. Urban females (70 years) have longer life span as compared to their rural counterparts. Composition of 60+ female population is higher in all of the bigger states except Assam, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir and Jharkhand.1 When one ponder through these demographic statistics, it is clear that in near future we will have to face new challenges of the problems of aged population in general and problems of aged women in particular.

Kalavar J.M. & Jamuna D2 (2011) have studied the experience of formal care homes in India. According to them childlessness and widowhood were important considerations in the decision to relocate to an old age home. Majority of the 97 women residents of ‘pay and stay’ homes reported being widowed (68%), and 25% were childless. According to Agewell Study3 (2011) on Human Rights & Status of Older Women in India, every 2 in 3 older women (66%) agreed that they were harassed abused or were being harassed/ abuse in Old age. The study was conducted on 10,000 older women spread across 200 districts of 25 States and Union Territories of India. Study also reveals that 61.7% of elder abuse cases occur by their own family members. Toni M. Calasanti & Kathleen F. Slevin4 (2001) in their study have found that the experience of men and women in later life varies enormously, not only along lines of gender but also due to ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, and race. In this study on gender issues among the aging, they have explored these differences, their genesis, their meaning to men and women, and their treatment in the policy arena. Martha Holstein5 (2015) in his study found that women’s experience of late life is shaped by the effects of lifelong gender norms, by contemporary culture-from gender stereotypes to ageism- and by the political context. Sue Westwood6 (2016) has studied on Aging, Gender and Sexuality. The study focuses on the experiences of older lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) individuals, in order to analyse how ageing, gender and sexuality intersect to produce particular inequalities relating to resources, recognition and representation in later life.

When, we explore the linkages of ageing with gender in India, one important issue is “older missing women". One may say that this concept is dubbing of Amartya Sen's^7,8 (1990, 1992) seminal work "Missing Women". Anyway, But the fact is that, unlike the missing girls phenomenon, excess female mortality at older ages in India has not received much attention and remains a puzzle. It has recently been argued, however, that in India excess female mortality persists beyond childhood and that close to half of these missing women are of post reproductive ages, that is, 45 and above (Anderson and Ray 2010) RossellaCalvi⁹ of Rice University has shared his research on Twitter and correlated this phenomenon with women's bargaining position which is reflected in the share of household resources devoted to them. According to her/him, the decline in women's bargaining position during post-reproductive ages that can account for a considerable fraction of missing women in the 45-79 age group. The decrease in women bargaining power is reflected in the diminished ability to access household resources. As a consequence, once intra-household resource allocation is taken into account, poverty rates are significantly higher among women than men, especially at older ages. In other words, when compared to developed countries, older Indian women die at a disproportionately higher rate relative to men exactly at those ages when they are disproportionately poorer than men.

                 Other important issues are: good health, economic and social security. These are essential requirements of aging with dignity. Both men and women face discrimination due to old age, but older women in both developed and developing countries face difficulties in accessing these on a basis of quality with men.¹⁰ The impact of gender inequalities throughout a woman's life span in obviously reflected in old age, and it often results in unfair resource allocation, maltreatment, abuse, Gender based violence and prevention of access to basic services.

                The entrenched Patriarchy in Indian social system is also sustained by scriptural narratives which are found dispersed in the Indio-socio-cultural matrix. The exhortation, women should eat less or they should take food after men have taken food has seminal impact on the body and physiology of women. They suffer from malnutrition, anaemia, lack of balanced diet etc. which has its impact on later day life. There are many castes in India where women are not allowed to undertake physical work outside the house. All these factors commutatively have a debilitating effect on women health and growth. In order to arrest the trend of aging among women in India, civil society, self help groups, and government and non-government organisations will have to undertake field studies to reverse this narrative to pin pointedly address and problems faced by the women in India.

                 Lately one often comes across severe reviews especially in the old age among women who at some point of time have contributed their entire might in supporting the family members. In the aftermath of neglect, secondary treatment women undergo mental isolation, and nervous breakdown. These severely hamper the health and wellbeing of women in India. This creates stark inequality in aging patterns between India and other countries. At times they often come across gender based violence and abuses as they have become dependent on the family.

1.Report of Census of India, 2011 2. Kalavar JM, Jamuna D (2011); Aging of Indian women in India: the experience of older women in formal care homes; Journal of women & Aging, 23(3),203-2015; https://doi.org/10.1080/08952841.2011.587730 3. Agewell study on Human Rights & Status of Older Women in India (July, 2011), Agewell Research & Advocacy Centre (For Needs & Rights of Older Persons ); Agewell Foundation, New Delhi. 4. Toni M. Calasanti & Kathleen F. Slevin (2001) 5. Martha Holstein (2015) 6. Sue Westwood (2016) 7.Sen, Amartya (1990) "More than 100 million women are missing" The New York Review of Books, 37(20), December 20, 1990 8. Sen, Amartya (1992) "Missing Women", British Medical Journal, 304 (March), 587-588 9. Rossella Calvi@rice.edu: Tweet#141 (https://twitter.com/share) 10. C.L. Estes and K. W Linkins, Devolution and Aging Policy: Racing to Bottom in Long term Care”, International Journal of Health Services, 1997, 27, pp. 427-442.