Differences in Health-related quality of life among older migrants and non-migrants in India: The role of migration-related factors

Vasim Ahamad, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Ram Bhagat, International Institute for Population Sciences, India

Background: The study's main objective is to examine HRQOL among older migrants and non-migrant populations in India and assess the role of migration-related factors. Method: A total of 30,158 samples aged 60 and above were selected from the LASI data. The HRQOL was measured based on a EuroQol Five-Dimension (EQ-5D) measure. Descriptive statistics were used to examine HRQOL differences, and logistic regression analysis was used to examine the association between HRQOL and migration status and other correlates of older persons. Results: Over half of the older persons (55.9%) were growing older at destination places in India. The migrants showed a higher prevalence of poor HRQOL (44.5%) than non-migrants (34.8%). Further, the adjusted logistic regression result shows that migrants were likelier to have poor HRQOL [AOR:1.15; CI: 1.09-1.22] than non-migrants. The migrants with 0-9 years of duration and migration at age 60 and above were significantly more likely to have poor HRQOL [AOR:1.20; CI: 1.03-1.39] and [AOR:1.20; CI: 1.04-1.39], respectively, than non-migrants. Moreover, the origin-destination place of migrants was also found to be significantly associated with poor HRQOL compared to non-migrants. Conclusions: This study predicts that migrants especially need separate health policies as they have poorer health conditions than non-migrants.

Keywords: Internal Migration and Urbanization, Health and Morbidity, Population Ageing, Migrant Populations and Refugees

See extended abstract.