Elderly decision making autonomy at household level: an empirical study in eastern Uttar Pradesh, India

Background: How socio-demographic and demographic factors influence elderly autonomy in decision making on different household level dimension like, health care for sick person, children education, what item to cook in house, including purchasing goods and visiting family. This study aims to explore the elderly decision making autonomy at household level. Methods: A community based Empirical study was conducted in rural areas of eastern Uttar Pradesh. Three Districts had been selected for the study the composite index of development was the basis of the selection of districts from rural eastern Uttar Pradesh and the required minimum sample size was 417. Results: The multivariate regression results for the relationship between Decision making autonomy and different background characteristics and their predictors like family type, health status; composite index is highly significant, thus contributed highly in the autonomy of decision making of individuals. Autonomy in decision making is found to be significant with respect to predictors (Family type, Current working for cash income, health status, marital status, co-residing with 18+ adult children, and education status) but in model 2, when we also add four other predictors, decision making become not significant in respect to currently working for cash income, where as new predictors income index and districts are significantly associated with autonomy in decision making of individuals Conclusions: A more comprehensive strategy can enable elderly to access community resources, to challenge traditional norms and to access economic resources. This will lead the elderly to be more autonomous in decision making in the due course.