The term "Baby Boomers" was coined because of World War II. Today, the same boomers who were born around 1946 are 80 years young only.
Every few decades there comes a milestone which sees global level impact, two such events which saw a shift in demographic patterns in India were,
1) "Year 2000 Problem" or simply Y2K
2) and in my opinion the second one was the "Dot Com boom".
Due to Y2K and Dot Com, India saw mass migration to other countries which probably started from the mid eighties for Y2K followed by the Dot Com migration.
How do such global events filter down to the Indian Ageing sector of today?
The logic is simple; when the brain drain started happening in large volumes, the result was that, parents started living alone in India.
In my opinion this was the first signs of shift from Joint Family System to nuclear families.
As these 75 year old parents start entering their 80's the need for Assisted Living, Care Homes, Domiciliary Care, Transition Care will become a real need rather than just a foreign country concept.
Probably that's why we see South Indian States and cities having the maximum concentration of Indipendent living projects, which could be due to the migration of Techies mainly from south india in the first wave 30 years ago.
Kerala is witness to migration of the younger generation from decades and probably it is due to this reason that Kerala has 30% of all India Old Age Homes (Care Homes).
The rapidly evolving sentiments, Outlook towards Senior Living and disappearance of the long associated taboo with the word Old Age Home, is probably now a fact rather than assumptions.
People are buying such residential senior care models and also using Home Care, especially in the Metros which is now gradually picking up in Tier 1 and 2 cities.
Though the purchasing capacities versus residential options will have to be sustainable both for the institutional level and at the private sector, however this is the right time to start mixing the brick and mortar.
Eldercare in India is an interesting space to keep a watch because the next 5-7 years are going to be innovative and sustainable.
Pankaj Mehrotra
