Md. Aminul Islam
Affiliation: Department of Sociology, University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh
Email: [email protected]
Abstract: Objectives: The objective of this paper is to depict the social status of the older people in a village of Bangladesh. Methods: Quantitative research approach has been applied in this paper. Data were collected using survey and observation methods. Both primary and secondary sources of data have been used in this paper. As techniques, purposive and simple random samplings were applied. The village was selected purposively as it represents the significant number of respondents. The older people as respondents were selected following simple random sampling. Results: This study consisted of N=101 Bangladeshi older people. The findings highlight that about 49.50% engage in buying and selling; 44.55% can receive treatment; 55.44% need permission for leaving home; 50% have no ability to control family members; 60.39% are invited in social and religious programs; 82.19% are able to mediate the familial dispute, 42.57% can participate in rural development activities; 60% older people are not considered important in family. So, the social status of the older people in the study village is not up to the mark satisfactory and matches with existing ideas. Conclusion: This paper may help policymakers to think about this issue in a new way and it may increase an eagerness among the academicians and researchers to undertake more empirical studies to explore the social status of the older people from the context of the other villages of Bangladesh.
Keywords: Bangladesh; Ideas; Realities; Role; Rural Older People; Status.