This week’s faculty seminar will feature a presentation by Dr. Swati Narayan, Assistant Professor, NLSIU, on ‘The Right to Retire: Universal Social Pensions in India.’

Abstract

More than sixty percent of the workforce in the Global South are in informal employment. Retirement is a luxury that few can afford, especially women. The capability approach emphasises the need for expansion of ‘substantive freedoms’ especially of the most vulnerable citizens. However, developing countries, such as India, often have inadequate social pension regimes to support adults in their older years. This paper with secondary data analyses the history, evolution and gaps in India’s pension regime with exclusions due to defective targeting, inadequate budgets, gender biases and faulty last mile delivery. Then it analyses the comparative political economy of social pensions in three pioneering countries of the Global South – Georgia, Nepal and South Africa. Based on this cumulative analysis, the research provides cost estimates for the universal expansion of the legal right to social pensions in India.