Impact of Old Age Allowance on Socio-Economic Well-being of Elderly People in Pokhara Metropolitan-26, Kaski

Abstract

Population ageing is pervasive since it is affecting nearly all the countries of the world. In Nepal people who are 60 years and above as considered as senior citizens. A majority of elders are living under the poverty. They suffer from deprivation, illiteracy, poor health and nutrition, low social status, discrimination and restriction on mobility. They lack means to fulfill their basic needs such as food, clothes, shelter, health care, and safe drinking water.

Old age allowance is the benefits provided by the government to elderly people for normal and dignified life. Government of Nepal first announced old age allowance to all the elderly people above 75 years in 1994. From 2008, the government has reduced the eligibility age threshold from 75 to 70 and 60 years for Dalits people and for people living in Karnali Zone.

This study entitled "Impact of Old Age Allowance on Socio-Economic Wellbeing of Elderly People in Pokhara Metropolitan-26, Kaski " aims to examine the change in socio-economic well beings of elderly people due to OAA along with to find out the factors associated with socio-economic well being of the beneficiaries. For this purpose, out of 630 dalit respondents who were getting old age allowance, 135 respondents (at 7.5% margin of error and 5% level of significance) have been selected purposively. Information was collected from these respondents using structured questionnaire and checklists. Both descriptive as well as inferential statistics were used for the analysis. Chi-squared test was applied to find the factors associated with socio-economic level of the respondents.

It is found that old age allowance helps to increase the number of friends in some ways, get involved in social activities, increased their importance on peers and associates, feel honored that government is taking care of them, increase their selfrespect,

get respect in neighbor, reduced financial dependency, meet their regular household expenditure, purchase of health service and medicine and meet their clothing needs. However due to very negligence amount OAA does not help to save money for future and support the education of their family members. From this, it can

be concluded that old age allowance plays an important role in socio-economic wellbeing of elderly people.

Most of them have not faced difficulties for getting allowance. However, some of them have faced difficulties to travel to ward office or bank to collect allowance due to their age, are not receiving allowance timely, late receiving allowance due to age error in documents, and feel lots of administrative hassles. Further it is found that ethnic group and education status are the major factors associated with socioeconomic level of the respondents. Finally, it is recommended for increase in allowance,

provide

allowance at home for those who cannot travel to bank to collect allowance and provide others facilities to elderly people for living normal life.