Abstract :Introduction: Very little is known about elderly parents’ quality of life after their children’s out
migration.
Objective: Main objective of this study is to assess the impact of out migration of children on the
elderly parents staying at old age homes.
Methods: This is a cross-sectional study carried out in Kathmandu valley. It has used both
quantitative and qualitative study due to limited number of respondents. Total sample size was 33
and two case studies were carried out.
Results: The mean age of the respondents was 75 (± 11.0) years. Majority of the participants were
female (69.7%), almost half were illiterate and nearly two third had no income source. There were
various reasons for not staying with their out-migrated children like illness, children not having
time to take care of their parents, children did not like to live with their parents, adjustment problem
in the new place and desire to die in their home land. Due to migration of their children, half of
the respondents (54.5%) had physical problem, 78.8% had emotional problem whereas only few
respondents had economic and social problems.
Conclusion: With the increasing trend of both internal and external migration of youth, elderly
parents are left over alone in their homelands or some old age homes; it is crucial to analyze issues
related with elderly before the problem becomes chronic with more intensive research work.