Kerala- paradise lost

Demographic transition in the state of Kerala has turned up new challenges which are yet to be solved. Culturally speaking people of Kerala are highly motivated workers. Once leaving their homeland, they find work in any part of the world and work very very hard to fulfill their dreams of earning large bank balances. The also send remittances home to their families, so that their brothers and sisters and their own children get education ; and soon as their education is complete, they leave their home state too. So who is left behind, the old people. The elderly are not cared for, and this is painful to see. As per 2011 census, 2280000 Keralites living outside Kerala state. There are millions of non-resident Keralites who have left their homeland. When they are old, they will return to their state. They have carved out solitary lifestyles for themselves with limited social contacts. Matrilineal tendencies has further altered their social life to minimum contacts. They are alienated from their own wider society in a different way.While men bond with only peer groups all their working lives, women are forced to take the responsibility of earning and bringing up children by themselves.
The number of aged has increased many fold in recent times. The state of Kerala has a rapidly ageing population. Fertility rate is very low as most parents hesitate to have more than one child. Working population is low as young persons from age 20 on wards leave the state to get employment elsewhere. Educated unemployment is high and the educated are forced to leave. No opportunities were provided for unemployed persons. The massive migration of young people in search of work has had second generation repercussions. No one is there to take care of the ageing generation. Because of population down fall, in future there won't be a high elderly population. From 2011 to 2021, population of elderly will be very high. After that it will decline because of lower growth rate of population. More than 400 old age homes have sprung up for those who were  needing a shelter. 550 Rupees is the paltry pension paid to the elderly who had been abandoned by their children. Medical costs or food cannot be paid for by this negligible amount. At a given time in an organization in a town, 5.34%  of the work force would be working, while 5.7% would be drawing pensions. For people who had taken 'work' very very seriously, and had worked all their lives, this is a terrible end--living in an old age home. It is so adverse to our cultural moorings,we live in three generational joint families. We are one day going to become part of this aged population. With so many many ancient temples, we wonder if God revisits his paradise on Earth--Kerala, what would he do for these people? Kerala is called "God's own country"; is it a fitting name? After the long difficult journey of travelling upstream, and making way for the next generation, the salmon fish dies in the pond of its birth...is this the just reward for the difficult struggles of the hard working Keralites? No they deserve better conditions.