ECONOMIC FEASIBILITY OF THE ELDERLY POPULATION IN SRI LANKA

Elderly population can be identified as one of the growing disposition nowadays. The process of the aging of the population can be considered as an important sector on population studies. Basically population aging is the growth of the population who are more than 60 years old than the population under the age of 15. According to United Nation estimation on population by 2025-2035 the growth rate of the 60t population would be 2.8% while the growth rate of general population would be 0.83%. Sri Lanka is well known as a South Asian country with increasing elderly population .It is consequential to take appropriate action for the increasing population of elders. The aging of Sri Lankan population is a consequence of a positive disposition of the decreasing of fertility and life expectancy .Therefore it is better to calculate the matter of aging population in a positive light .The provisional necessity is to create opportunities for the elders to involve in economic development without being a burden to the economy. The purpose of the paper is to study on the feasibility of the elderly population on economics. The study used primary date by choosing a sample of 100 participants from Western Hitthetiya of Matara Secretariat Division of Matara District. Thus, participants’ mental and physical feasibility and their ability and accord on working after retirement were studied. As secondary data, books, magazines and the records of Matara Secretariat Division on 2019 Resource Profile were used. Then the collected primary and secondary data were analyzed using MS Excel & SPSS software and the conclusion was that the 70% of the participants around age 60-70 have sufficient mental and physical feasibility to engage in work or a job and they are willing as well. Though they aimed to earn a payment via a job, their main purpose of working was gaining self-satisfaction and spending a quality time. Moreover they preferred if the retirement age get extended to 63 and it was evident that they liked the self-satisfaction of spending a quality time. It would be advantages to the economy at the elderly population engage in further working.