Elderly care: We need some help from the state to get by

One of the so-called ‘enduring features’ of India is its family structure—often talked up in the West, by the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, for instance, to try and draw a link between her Conservative Party and Indian values.

- DIPANKAR DE SARKAR

Conversely, the West has been portrayed as an entity without a society, with its families in terminal decline. Both are lazy characterizations, as is evident in the way we care for our elderly.

The family structure has undergone a seismic shift in India in a relatively short period of time. Family was meant to ensure care for the elderly in India. But the top-down system of a patriarch and many sons pooling their earnings into a common fund has withered in the face of modernization. The growth of nuclear families, accompanied by unceasing youth migration in search of opportunities—from rural to urban and urban to other countries—has left many old people flailing. The certainty of family-based care is ending, but there's nothing to replace it—except for paid care of often-dubious quality.