Changing Social Relations in a Metropolis: The Perception of the Middleclass Aged

Abstract

In recent years urban middleclass families are experiencing rationalization of family size, rationalization of living arrangement and large-scale dispersal of younger members in search of livelihood opportunities. The question of sociological significance is that whether all these leave a disintegrating impact on relations in the family, on the kin-group or on the neighbourhood relations. The present paper, based on empirical findings, observes that the middleclass in an urban setting face a number of stresses but they understand the value of familial and social relations, and even neighbourhood relations, in order to thwart the potentially disintegrating social forces. In the face of dispersal of the lone child in a distant city, the aged couple fall back on each other, support each other with a great deal of empathy to combat the challenges of old-age.