Perception of Elderly towards Social Security Allowance in Nepal

Abstract

With the worldwide increase in life expectancy, insecurities in life are increasing generally to old aged people which have never been known before. Universal Old Age Allowance distributed in cash to the elderly 70 years and above is the main social security system provided by Nepal Government to the Nepalese elderly. The main objective of this article is to explore the perception of the elderly on old age allowance in Nepal. This study has used both quantitative and qualitative data for the study purpose. Data for this purpose was gathered from Kirtipur Municipality of Kathmandu district. Total sample was 47 senior citizens receiving Social Security Allowance. For the qualitative purpose few case studies were also included. Mean age of the respondents was 77.21 (±4.73) years. Age ranged from 70 years to 96 years. 55.3% of the participants were female, 65.9% of the participants were illiterate. This study found Old Age Allowance (OAA) is the main source of income of the elderly and this money is used for multiple purposes: buying daily consuming food and clothes (87.2%), health related expenditure (51.1%), with offspring (14.9%) and travelling (6.4%). This study found 61.7 percentage of the elderly expressed that the old age allowance was insufficient. Further, receiving OAA was not easy as they have to wait for a longer period to receive such benefits in the office, irregularities from government to provide such allowance on time. People who were satisfied from this allowance reported it was an honour from government and they can use this money on their own. This finding based on sample of small population cannot be generalized to whole population but the issues explored in this study may give some idea how elderly allowance is perceived in Nepal. A detailed in depth study related to OAA is required and government should take some initiative for the better management of OAA with alternative way other than cash which leads to sustainability of the program.