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Families at Crossroad: Need for Active Ageing

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Handbook of Aging, Health and Public Policy

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Abstract

The concern of human race about growing older is found in fables of children, religious scriptures, and other literature. It is one of the universal truths, that those who have taken birth would also degenerate and eventually die. Still, the quest had been to find answers why we age? Medical sciences and technological innovations had made pathbreaking findings in the form of controlling morbidity but solutions to mortality have not been discovered. Worldwide as well as at national level, the marching of population is towards getting older. As such in recent times, the issue has become the focus of the attention of demographers and social science researchers. Two processes had been happening simultaneously, the population of older persons is increasing while the structure of family and societal values is receding. The family used to be the heaven for satisfaction of their needs and all members willingly performed the roles and responsibilities of care and support. Modern contemporary lifestyle has limited scope to attend to the older persons within the families which had led to rise in cases of unfulfilled needs. Attitude of breaking away from active life make people disenchanted. To combat the negative approach, WHO had successfully formulated policy framework for active ageing that can bring perceptual change towards getting old. Theory of active ageing built on the concept of productive ageing aims to add quality in life and satisfaction among the elderly with promotion of health and social engagement. For the family and society, it means lesser burden on social, economic, and health care resources which could instill happiness and satisfaction.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Work, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India

    Asiya Nasreen

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  1. Asiya Nasreen
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Correspondence to Asiya Nasreen .

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  1. Head Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee,, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India

    Anindya Jayanta Mishra

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Nasreen, A. (2022). Families at Crossroad: Need for Active Ageing. In: Handbook of Aging, Health and Public Policy. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1914-4_59-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1914-4_59-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-981-16-1914-4

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