ELDERLY PEOPLE LIVING IN OLD AGE HOMES IN MADURAI DISTRICT

Ageing has been defined as the total constellation of social, biological and psychological changes that occur in the last stage of life. Ageing of the population is one of the most important demographic factors that have emerged in the 21st Century. Old age is the closing period of the life span. It is a period when people ‘move away’ from previous more desirable periods or times of ‘usefulness’. Old age homes are a boon to those who do not enjoy the support of their children or have nobody to take care of them. At least old age homes provide them shelter, food and company. But definitely, nothing can compensate for living with affectionate children and grandchildren. The objectives of the present study are as follows: i) to understand the socio-economic conditions of inmates of old age homes in the study area, ii) to find out the living conditions of inmates of the old age homes in the study area and iii) to understand the reasons behind the joining of the respondents in old age homes in the study area. This study is based on primary data. The data were collected from Madurai District. There are 30 registered old age homes in Madurai district. From each home, 10 respondents have been selected by adopting a systematic sampling technique. The researcher has selected 300 respondents for this study. Average, Simple Percentage, Weighted Arithmetic Mean and factor analysis are used to analyze the collected data.