As the aging phenomenon sweeps across India and calls for creating supportive structures for enabling healthy aging and productive aging for senior citizens reverberate, the importance of studying age as an element of intersectionality and cumulative disadvantage that results in disparities in healthcare access to older adults is underlined. There is evidence of intersectionality that emerges from disadvantages on account of age, caste, race, socioeconomic conditions, employment, and education, for example, and all of these have strong bearings on older adults’ access and utilization of healthcare. The cumulative disadvantage that older adults face as they age stems from the logical, theoretical, and empirical intersectionality that accrues implicitly and irreducibly with relation to time. Social gerontological explorations highlight these intersectional characteristics that result in the initiation, elaboration, and perpetuation of the cumulative disadvantage perspective that older adults face due to deprivation, discrimination, and the continuance of ageist perspectives. There is an overbearing influence of disadvantage and inequality for older adults although the characteristics of older adults reflect heterogeneity in a large measure. This chapter reviews intersectionality – its basis, origin, elaboration, and implications that result in cumulative disadvantage for older adults’ access and utilization of healthcare in India. The synthesis reflects a nuanced delve into intersectional forbearance that older adults experience in their life course as they age within a contextual situation of disadvantage. The chapter deliberates on the layers of intersectionality that coexist and interact in multiple ways to compound the perception and existence of disadvantage and discrimination for older adults in accessing care within family, society, and policy constructs. Based on the perspectives that emanate in this body of work, the chapter offers a synthesized review on cumulative disadvantage and intersectionality and provides directions for future research as well as suggestive public policy recommendations for reducing disparity and disadvantages for older adults in accessing and utilizing healthcare.

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Intersectionality and Cumulative Disadvantage in Access to Healthcare for Older Adults in India

  • Allen Prabhaker Ugargol,
  • Vasundharaa S. Nair

摘要

As the aging phenomenon sweeps across India and calls for creating supportive structures for enabling healthy aging and productive aging for senior citizens reverberate, the importance of studying age as an element of intersectionality and cumulative disadvantage that results in disparities in healthcare access to older adults is underlined. There is evidence of intersectionality that emerges from disadvantages on account of age, caste, race, socioeconomic conditions, employment, and education, for example, and all of these have strong bearings on older adults’ access and utilization of healthcare. The cumulative disadvantage that older adults face as they age stems from the logical, theoretical, and empirical intersectionality that accrues implicitly and irreducibly with relation to time. Social gerontological explorations highlight these intersectional characteristics that result in the initiation, elaboration, and perpetuation of the cumulative disadvantage perspective that older adults face due to deprivation, discrimination, and the continuance of ageist perspectives. There is an overbearing influence of disadvantage and inequality for older adults although the characteristics of older adults reflect heterogeneity in a large measure. This chapter reviews intersectionality – its basis, origin, elaboration, and implications that result in cumulative disadvantage for older adults’ access and utilization of healthcare in India. The synthesis reflects a nuanced delve into intersectional forbearance that older adults experience in their life course as they age within a contextual situation of disadvantage. The chapter deliberates on the layers of intersectionality that coexist and interact in multiple ways to compound the perception and existence of disadvantage and discrimination for older adults in accessing care within family, society, and policy constructs. Based on the perspectives that emanate in this body of work, the chapter offers a synthesized review on cumulative disadvantage and intersectionality and provides directions for future research as well as suggestive public policy recommendations for reducing disparity and disadvantages for older adults in accessing and utilizing healthcare.