Household Financial Fragility

Limited Contributory Retirement Coverage for India's Informal Workforce

Most people who work in India do so outside any employer-linked or contributory pension arrangement, and will reach old age without a pension they have paid into. The share of the population aged 60 and over is projected to rise from 10.1 per cent in 2021 to 14.9 per cent in 2036, so the gap widens as the population ages. No single national percentage is stated here, deliberately. Formal employment, EPFO membership, subscription to the National Pension System or the Atal Pension Yojana, and "pension coverage" are different things measured by different bodies against different denominators; averaging them would produce a figure none of the sources supports. The Economic Survey states the position plainly enough without one: coverage remains modest relative to the size of the workforce.