The Nexus between Migration and Health in India: Analyzing Risk factors and Vulnerability for the Disease-prevalence among Older Adults between Migrants and Non-migrants Status in Large Scale Nationally Representative Data

Prem Mishra, Institute for Social And Economic Change

Migration impacts not only socio-economic and demographic factors but also physical, mental, and psychological well-being of the population. Therefore this study aims to explore the risk factors and vulnerability laying for health and well-being between migrants and non-migrants older adults as well gender-disparities. Data from Longitudinal-Ageing-Study-in-India are used conducted during 2017-18. The total sample-size for the present study is 31,464 older adults aged 60 years and above. Descriptive and multivariate-analysis was carried out to determine the risk factors and association of the disease-prevalence with migration status of the older adults. Results The study population comprises 30.7% older males 80.3% of female as migrants. We analysed different outcome variables i.e., cognitive-impairment, depression-symptom, and multi-morbid with migration statues among older-adults. By the migration status, the disease-prevalence was proportionally high among male migrants than non-migrants (29.0% vs 19.2%) and female migrants (29.0% vs 25.2%). low-resource-setting, migrants with poor socio-economic groups and gender differences were found in disease prevalence among older-adults in India. Given the scarcity of data on Indian older-adults with migrant statuses, our findings are crucial for future study aiming at determining the causal-relationship between diseases prevalence and health consequences across migrants’ statuses in India, as well identifying physiological, psychological, and socio-economic risk factors for disease-prevalence across gender in India.

Keywords: Older Adults and Intergenerational Relations, Internal Migration and Urbanization, Health and Morbidity, Longitudinal studies

See extended abstract.