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Happiness and Well-Being in Old Age

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Religious and Spiritual Practices in India

Abstract

The topic of interest in the twenty-first century has shifted from ‘how long will I live’ to ‘if I am going to live a long time, how can I be happy in the process?’ The present chapter attempts to answer this question with particular reference to the Indian context. After reviewing the happiness literature on older people, we report the findings of a qualitative study on 56 older Indians. The primary aim of this study was to unearth their sources of happiness and unhappiness. Such studies are important given the uniqueness of the Indian sociocultural conceptions of aging and the relative dearth of such studies on older Indians. While there is a substantial body of literature on various age-related declines, studies such as the present one help readjust the balance by highlighting ways to enhance their well-being.

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Correspondence to Shilpa Bandyopadhyay .

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© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

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Bandyopadhyay, S., Singh, K. (2023). Happiness and Well-Being in Old Age. In: Singh, K., Saxena, G. (eds) Religious and Spiritual Practices in India. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-2397-7_14

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