Healthy ageing and workforce re-entry among senior citizens in India: A qualitative exploration of motivations and experiences

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the motivations underlying senior citizens’ decisions to reenter the workforce in India and to examine how healthy aging, including physical, psychological, and social well-being, influences these decisions and their perceptions of meaningful employment. Twenty-five participants aged 59 to 70 were interviewed individually to understand their motivations to return to the workforce. The findings suggest that senior citizens’ feelings and distress around being dependent (“dependency will kill our honor”) and unproductive (“what to do with our time”) motivate their reentry into the workforce to look for meaningful work. Notably, these feelings mark a shift in the changing cultural norms in neoliberal India, where senior citizens no longer feel entitled to be under the care of their children or extended family (if any), and/or do not feel supported by limited and shrinking government benefits. The findings point to a need to implement policies that encourage employers to hire more senior workers in relevant work and adapt the legal age limits to reflect the life expectancy rate from time to time.