Elderly health, wealth and coresidence with adult children in rural India

Abstract

Little is known about the living conditions of a growing number of elderly in India who predominantly coreside with their children. Mutual sharing of responsibilities is important in coresidency arrangements involving exchange of financial and other services between the elderly and their coresident children. The paper focuses on health and wealth effects of elderly coresidency arrangements. In an attempt to redress the resultant endogeneity bias, we estimate a correlated recursive system of equations. There is evidence that the probability of coresidence is lower for those disadvantaged older elderly who lack health, wealth or both, thus necessitating social protection.