Informal Employment and High Burden of Out-of-Pocket Healthcare Payments among Older Workers: Evidence from Longitudinal Ageing Study in India

India's economy is among the fastest growing in the world. However, a large share of informal workforce is a common characteristic of country's economy, comprises a significant portion of most of its labour markets. This workforce often receives low wages and lacks benefits such as strong social security and health coverage for all. The majority of healthcare spending in India is private. As India's population ages and the informal sector expands, it is expected that many of these workers will continue to work beyond the retirement age to bear their own healthcare costs due to lack of savings, pensions and the precarious nature of their employment. In this context, this study estimates the burden of Out-of-Pocket (OOP) payments on India's informal older workers compared to their formal counterparts, using data from the first wave of the nationally representative Longitudinal Ageing Study in India. According to estimates from the Two-part regression model, informal older workers pay, on an average, INR 1113 (p