Page 29 - IJPS-4-2

International Journal of Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Living longer: For better or worse? Changes

in life expectancy with and without

mobility limitation among older persons in

India between 1995–1996 and 2004

Sreerupa , S. Irudaya Rajan , Shweta Ajay , Yasuhiko Saito ,
1
2,3
2
1
Rahul Malhotra *
2,4
1 Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram - 695011, Kerala, India,
2 Centre for Ageing Research and Education, Duke-NUS Medical School, 169857, Singapore
3 Nihon University, Tokyo 101-8360, Japan,
4 Health Services and Systems Research, Duke-NUS Medical School, 169857, Singapore

ARTICLE INFO
Abstract: This study estimates changes in life expectancy with and without mobility limitation
Received: May 20, 2018 to test whether older persons in India experienced compression or expansion of morbidity from
Accepted: June 30, 2018
Published: July 8, 2018 the period 1995–1996 to 2004. Age-specific death rates and the prevalence of mobility limitation
were obtained from the Sample Registration System and two rounds (1995–1996/2004) of
*CORRESPONDING AUTHOR the National Sample Survey. Sullivan’s method was employed to compute life expectancy

Rahul Malhotra with and without mobility limitation by gender and by place of residence. From 1995–1996
Centre for Ageing Research and to 2004, at ages 60, 70, and 80, older men and older rural persons in India experienced a
Education, Duke-NUS Medical significant increase in life expectancy without mobility limitation and a significant reduction
School, 8 College Road, 169857, in the proportion of remaining life with mobility limitation, suggesting a compression of
Singapore. rahul.malhotra@ morbidity. However, over this same period, older women and older urban persons seem to
duke-nus.edu.sg have experienced an expansion of morbidity with an increase in life expectancy with mobility
CITATION limitation and an increase in the proportion of remaining life with mobility limitation. These
results call for the promotion and maintenance of physical mobility among all older persons in
Sreerupa, Rajan SI, Shweta Ajay, India, with special attention to older women and older urban persons.
Saito Y, Malhotra R (2018). Living
longer: For better or worse? Keywords: health expectancy; India: life expectancy; mobility limitation; morbidity
Changes in life expectancy with
and without mobility limitation
among older persons in India 1. Introduction
between 1995–1996 and
2004. International Journal of According to the 2011 census, nearly one in 10 persons (8.6%) in India were aged 60
Population Studies, 4(2):23-34. and above (hereafter older persons) (Census of India, 2011). This proportion translates to
doi: 10.18063/ijps.v4i2.761 104 million individuals in India’s burgeoning population (Census of India, 2011), making
Copyright: © 2018 Sreerupa, India home to the world’s second largest population of older persons. Moreover, by 2051,
Rajan SI, Shweta Ajay, the number of older persons is expected to reach 298 million, nearly 20% of India’s total
Saito Y, Malhotra R. This projected population (Rajan, Risseeuw, and Perera, 2008). A key contributor to the large
is an Open Access article and increasing population of older persons in India is the rise in life expectancy at older
distributed under the terms ages; while in 1990 an Indian aged 60 was expected to live another 15 years, in 2013 an
of the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Indian aged 60 was expected to live another 17 years (World Health Organization, 2015).
International License (http:// The increase in life expectancy at older ages is a significant development and public health
creativecommons.org/licenses/ achievement for India. However, whether this increase in life expectancy is associated
by-nc/4.0/), permitting all with a better or worse state of health during the additional years of life has received little
noncommercial use, distribution, attention.
and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is This important yet unanswered question can be addressed by assessing changes over
properly cited. time in the health expectancy of older persons in India. Health expectancy refers to the

International Journal of Population Studies | 2018, Volume 4, Issue 2 23