What Matters More for Old Age? Vulnerability Assessment using Household Survey of Pakistan

Abstract

Vulnerability depends on three risk factors, i.e. exposure to risk, sensitivity towards risk and adaptive capacity. At present there is no standard indicator to analyze the vulnerability of old age in Pakistan. This paper addresses the challenge. The main objective in this paper is to identify how household-specific factors influence old age vulnerabilities. Logistic regression is used for empirical analysis and data is driven from Household Integrated Economic Survey (HIES 2018-19) of Pakistan. The results show that 21% of individuals aged 80 years and above fall into severely vulnerable category, and 34% of 70-80 years of age are moderately vulnerable. It further reveals that older women are more vulnerable than men and urban resident’s health status is not promising, with a higher sensitivity status. The findings serve as a reference for identification and effective interventions to address the old age vulnerabilities and design a sustainable social protection system for the old age population.