Chapter 13 Quality of Life Among the Aged in India: Anthropological Insights Reetinder Kaur and Rohit Kumar Abstract The present study is an attempt to understand dimensions of life satisfac- tion and quality of life among the rural elderly. The data is collected from 160 elderly living in and around Naggar village situated in district Kullu of Himachal Pradesh. The results of the study reveal that elderly describe their life satisfaction in terms of financial self-sufficiency, social network and social support, religious disposition and satisfaction with their health conditions. It is suggested that a holistic all-inclusive policy must be drafted to address the life satisfaction and quality of life issues among the elderly in India especially the elderly women. Keywords Elderly · Satisfaction · Integrated programme · Quantitative approach · Socio-demographic profile 13.1 Introduction Ageing of the human population is one of the major demographic transitions of the twenty-first century. The proportion of elderly is increasing at an alarming rate and the aged constitute the fastest growing section of the population. According to Sample Registration System data, the population of aged in India has increased from 5.3% to 5.7% and from 6.0% to 8.0% from 1971 to 1981 and from 1991 to 2011, respectively. According to Census of India 2011, there are more elderly females in both rural (5.8%) and urban (5.5%) India as compared to males (5.1% in rural and 4.8% in the urban areas). The elderly population is expected to increase its share to more than 10% by the year 2021 (Central Statistics Office 2011). India is expected to become an ageing society by 2024, the focus would be on its preparedness towards meeting the ageing crisis from the present unstructured system (Lee et al. 2011). With the decline in fertility and mortality rates accompanied by the improvement in child R. Kaur (B ) Department of Anthropology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India e-mail: reetinder1986@gmail.com R. Kumar HelpAge India, New Delhi, India © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 B. R. K. Sinha (ed.), Multidimensional Approach to Quality of Life Issues, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6958-2_13 195