An An In-Depth Study on the Effect of Increasing Geriatric Population on Public and Private Sector Investments in India: Interregional and Intertemporal Analysis

Abstract

Longevity and geriatric demands are increasing throughout the world, particularly in developing economies like India. India is peculiarly positioned as although the extent and magnitude of the country’s demands is acknowledged, resultant private and public investments/schemes have been revealed to be vastly inadequate to address this huge rural-urban aged population. Ideally, the solution lies in a concerted effort from all stakeholders to combat this myriad issue. Addressing this issue in India, however, becomes even more complex when interregional variations in poverty levels, extent of rural poor and urban poor, GDP, provisions and such are factored into consideration. Moreover, mitigating the challenge of interregional differences is not easy. Although the private sector is given the opportunity to enter into a sphere where it can present an opportunity to increase employment and income, helping to achieve various macroeconomic indicators, urban-rural disparities may put several demographics at an even greater disadvantage. From the point of view of the public sector, the government must be proactive in not only announcing policies but also implementing them at the grassroot level with a consideration of interregional variation, which is extremely difficult to achieve considering opportunity costs, limited budgets and known disparities.