Impact of Old Age Allowance on Socio-Economic Well-being of Elderly People in Pokhara Metropolitan-26, Kaski
Date
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Department of Economics
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.