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Measuring Human Well-Being in India and its Major States Using the ‘Years of Good Life’ Indicator
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DOI：10.1007/s11205-026-03906-9.png)
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Abstract
En 中文
Rising life expectancy and population ageing necessitate a better understanding of quality of later life in rapidly ageing societies like India. As this country undergoes a rapid demographic transition, it is anticipated to have a significantly higher proportion of older adults in the future. This study tries to shed light on the well-being of the older-adult population in India and its major states by employing the novel ‘Years of Good Life’ (YoGL) indicator. According to the YoGL approach, a person-year is counted as ‘good’ if spent simultaneously out of poverty, free from severe activity limitations and cognitive impairments, along with positive life satisfaction. Thus, rather than focusing merely on the fulfillment of material wants and needs, this index is based on ‘capabilities’. Our YoGL estimates for Indian states reveal substantial sub-national variation in well-being by gender and place of residence. Despite enjoying higher life expectancy, females can expect to enjoy considerably fewer good years than males. At age 60, YoGL for rural women is 4.6 years (less than one fourth of their remaining life expectancy), while YoGL for urban males is 10.2 years (around half of their remaining life expectancy). Decomposition analyses reveal that males are losing good life to poor functional health while females are being penalized in YoGL-terms due to cognitive impairment. We conclude that YoGL can be an effective socio-demographic tool for measuring and monitoring human well-being at the sub-national level to provide potential inputs for policy framing in India.
Keywords:
Healthy Aging
Gender
Human Well-being
Years of Good Life
India
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