Paper short abstract:

It was endeavoured to understand the economic self-sufficiency and problems among elderly tribal women inhabiting Western Himalayas and relationship of their background characteristics with such problems.

Paper long abstract:

Elderly tribal women, the repository of knowledge, wisdom and experience are considered as assets in some societies and burden in the others or even in the same societies. Some may be economically self-sufficient, self-dependent and not being dependent on others whereas others may be facing financial hardships. An empirical study was conducted in the Western Himalayas in India with the objectives to know whether elderly women are self-sufficient or they are facing financial hardships. Frequency & ways to overcome such hardship and its association with subjects' background characteristics were also investigated. Data was collected from 285 elderly women with the help of an interview schedule and Focused Group Discussions. One fourth of the respondents were economically self-sufficient and rests were dependent on family and non-family members. Those who had heavy financial needs devised ways like raising loan, borrowing money, mortgaging land/ jewellery or even selling of land to overcome adverse circumstances. It was observed that lower the age of informants lower is the proportion of those facing financial hardship. Almost two third of the widows, half the married and one fourth of the unmarried have problem on this account. Majority of the older women staying in the nuclear and adopted families have financial. Higher proportion of elderly women having higher income faces financial hardship. On the contrary lower proportion of them has lower income have economic problems. On application of chi-square test age, family type and marital have been found to have significant relationship with financial hardship of subjects.