Aging & Society: Eighth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

The ageing population and massive rural-to-urban migration poses major challenges to elderly care in rural areas as the traditional method of inter-generational elderly support is under considerable pressure. This paper examines the impact of migration of adult children on the psychological well-being of rural elderly. The study was carried out in Utnal village of Vijayapur district and Dadanatti, Kajjidoni and Sunag tanda of Bagalkot district of Karnataka. The total sample comprised of 102 elderly persons aged 65 years and above whose adult children had migrated to other places other than their place of origin. The scale developed and standardized by Sisodia, D.S. and Choudhary, P. was used to measure the psychological well-being of rural elderly. The scale consists of five areas namely satisfaction, efficiency, sociability, mental health, and interpersonal relations with ten items in each area. The results revealed that 53.92 percent of the respondents had low level of psychological well being. Only 4.90 percent of them had high level of psychological well being. Psychological well being of the rural elderly was found to be low due to sons’ migration in 73. 54 percent of the respondents. Life satisfaction (+0.185), Efficiency (+0.135), Sociability (+0.165), mental health (+ 0.170) and interpersonal relations (+0.162*) had a positive and significant relationship at five percent level with the psychological well being of the rural elderly.