Perspectives of research on aging in India

Cross-National Differences in Goals for Retirement: the Case of India and the United States

In the present investigation, a comparison is made between the retirement goals of working Indian adults and previously published data on the retirement goals of working adults in the United States. Participants were 158 Indian respondents between 21 and 60 years of age. Each respondent completed a questionnaire in which they reported the nature of the goals they held for retirement. For the most part, the types of the goals enumerated by workers from India were similar to those of Americans. However, Indians were found to focus more on financial stability and self-related goals, whereas Americans tended to focus on leisure and exploration activities. Moreover, Indian workers reported fewer retirement goals and their goals were less concrete than those reported by Americans. Findings are discussed in terms of the way culturally-based differences and similarities in retirement systems can impact some aspects of future goals (e.g., frequency; concreteness), but not other aspects of goal structures (e.g., goal content).

Activating the knowledge-to-action cycle for geriatric care in India

Despite a rapidly aging population, geriatrics--the branch of medicine that focuses on healthcare of the elderly--is relatively new in India, with many practicing physicians having little knowledge of the clinical and functional implications of aging. Negative attitudes and limited awareness, knowledge or acceptance of geriatrics as a legitimate discipline contribute to inaccessible and poor quality care for India's old. The aim of this paper is to argue that knowledge translation is a potentially effective tool for engaging Indian healthcare providers in the delivery of high quality geriatric care. The paper describes India's context, including demographics, challenges and current policies, summarizes evidence on provider behaviour change, and integrates the two in order to propose an action plan for promoting improvements in geriatric care.