INDIA : "Caregiving for the elderly is a challenge that needs to be addressed urgently" - Moneylife, Sept. 2011.

Article by Dr Nita Mukherjee :

Here are some extracts :

"How much worse the situation is in India can be gauged from even casual conversations with most urban middle-class, double-income families; most complain about the lack of home-care workers to look after their old parents. 
It is time we recognise the huge potential that care-givers, as a profession provides for creating livelihoods, especially for women and the consequential development impact it holds. Over the next few years, the changing demographics of India will present a huge opportunity which is waiting to be grabbed-either as business or as service or both.

According to an estimate, by 2050, India will have 335 million people above the age of 60. Assume that 60% of these are in urban areas-i.e., 201 million people. Further assume that 50% of these will require some amount of care-i.e., about 100 million. 
Of these, assume that 75% will either have some kind of family support or would go in for some kind of community care. 
So the balance 25% requires personal/individual care at home, and you are looking at a need for 25 million care-givers.

Are we in a position to provide the kind of training and certification that such care-givers require? A very simple calculation would show that each year for the next 40 years, we need to train 625,000 care-givers. 
Even if 50% of these are women-who need not be highly educated, just 10th std pass may be good enough-you are looking at providing training and, therefore, jobs to nearly 300,000 women each year. Additionally, to train such a large workforce you will require faculty of 7,500 trainers (assuming a ratio of 40:1). " ...............................

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Caregiving for the elderly is a challenge that needs to be addressed urgently - Moneylife Personal Finance site and magazine