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Insights into Labor Force Participation among Older Adults: Evidence from the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India

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Abstract

Using data collected in 2017–18 for the baseline wave of the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India, this paper analyzes labor force participation among older adults (people aged 60 years and older) and their job characteristics, income, and associated social security benefits. Analysis of a cohort of 31,464 older adults shows that although labor force participation declines with age, 36% of older adults in India are working; of these, two-thirds are employed primarily in agriculture and allied services, only 5% have a full-time job, and just 6% are covered by a work-related pension scheme. Older adults who have less education, live alone, do not have a chronic disease, and lack health insurance or pension coverage are more likely to work beyond age 60. The dominant predictor of labor force participation is health status, especially in rural India. Older adults are almost equally likely to work across wealth categories in urban India, rejecting the hypothesis that only the poor work beyond age 60 in India. Vulnerable (i.e., rural, living alone, divorced/separated) females work more than their male counterparts. Older adults continue to work depending on their physical capacity, which is highly age-dependent, across economic categories. Our results provide evidence for the pursuit of an older adult policy in India that focuses on healthy ageing particularly in the context of poor social security coverage and the unorganized nature of work, as healthy populations continue to engage in economic activity.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Tora Thurisaz, Arunika Agarwal and Leo Zucker for their edits and comments that helped us to improve the paper. Thanks to all coordinators, research officers, state agencies, investigators of LASI and every respondent for their incredible efforts in generating the wealth of data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, India

    Aparajita Chattopadhyay, Junaid Khan, Debashree Sinha, Sangeeta Gupta & Arokiasamy Perianayagam

  2. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    David E. Bloom

  3. National Institute of Medical Statistics (NIMS), Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi, India

    Itishree Nayak

  4. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Jinkook Lee

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  1. Aparajita Chattopadhyay
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Correspondence to Debashree Sinha.

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Chattopadhyay, A., Khan, J., Bloom, D.E. et al. Insights into Labor Force Participation among Older Adults: Evidence from the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India. Population Ageing 15, 39–59 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12062-022-09357-7

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