Widowhood is a challenging phase of life marked by emotional distress, lack of social support and economic hardship. The World Widows Report by The Loomba Foundation (2022) indicates that India has the largest widow population in the world, constituting approximately 17% of the world’s widows. In India, widows, and particularly upper-caste Hindu widows, have faced stigmatising religious and cultural practices (Chen, 1998). Historically, such practices have included the immolation of widows on their husbands’ funeral pyres, social segregation and the deprivation of food and participation in social and cultural activities (Chen, 2000). Various social reform movements led to legal reforms during British colonisation, and after Indian independence, government policies were implemented to improve widows’ access to welfare (Kitchlu, 1993). These developments have contributed to a decline in stigmatising practices against widows in many parts of India.

However, remnants of discrimination and marginalisation persist. Even today, when their husbands – often the primary breadwinners – die, widows in India frequently struggle to be self-sufficient. Some must resort to being financially dependent on ill-treating or exploitative relatives (Chen, 2000). Relatedly, nearly three in four widowed women report experiencing verbal abuse in their household (Hossain, 2024). Widowers in India also face grave economic and social challenges, including financial hardship, food insecurity and mistreatment (Hossain, 2024). However, due to the pervasive sociocultural biases and forms of discrimination that widows in India face in public and familial domains, such as restricted financial autonomy, discriminatory property ownership and inheritance practices and a lack of social support, widows have fewer options than those available to widowers (Kumar and Bhakat, 2021).

Over the next two decades, addressing the disadvantages that widows in India face will become critically important as cumulative demographic shifts are expected to lead to widowhood increasing at a greater rate among women than among men. This has three main causes: a significant gender gap in the age at marriage; increased life expectancy of women relative to that of men; and cultural taboos surrounding widow remarriage.

First, while early marriage has gradually become less common in India (Scott et al. 2021; Singh et al. 2023), females have historically married at younger ages than males and continue to do so, causing an age gap between spouses. In fact, the difference in the median age at first marriage between men and women aged 25 to 49 has slightly widened in India in recent years, increasing from 5.9 years in 2005–06 to 6.1 years in 2019–21 (IIPS and ICF, 2021; IIPS and Macro International, 2007).

Second, the life expectancy gap between women and men has increased and may even widen further to favour women amidst population ageing in the next two decades (Figure 1). To illustrate, in 2025 and 2050, the gap between women’s and men’s life expectancy at age 65 in India is projected to be 1.5 years and 1.9 years, respectively, according to the World Population Prospects’ medium fertility variant projection scenario (United Nations, 2024). This implies that older women will outlive older men (United Nations, 2024). Multiple biological, social and behavioural factors likely drive this trend, including higher rates of tobacco and alcohol use among Indian men; unique gendered occupational risks and stressors faced by men; lower fertility driving reductions in maternal mortality; and the biological advantage women have in longevity (Austad, 2006; Bhushan et al. 2024; Biswas et al. 2021; Borah, 2021; Neufeld et al. 2005; Singh et al. 2021).

Third, it is well known that Indian widows, particularly those from upper-caste Hindu backgrounds, face restrictions to remarry due to prevailing sociocultural and religious norms (Chen, 1998; Jensen, 2005; Reed, 2020). Such norms are unlikely to undergo substantial shifts in the foreseeable future, especially among older widows. With no significant change in the gender gap in the marriage age, a widening life expectancy gap favouring women and limited prospects of widow remarriage, an increase in the share of widows relative to that of widowers, especially among older adults, is inevitable. Some regions in India are more likely than others to experience a substantial increase in the widow population. South India already has a larger widow population than North India (Jain et al. 2022). Accelerated ageing in South India, driven by increased life expectancy (James and Goli, 2017), will further contribute to a surge in the widow population in the region.

Some paradoxical socioeconomic realities accompany the demographic shifts in the widow population. On the one hand, India is projected to become the third-largest economy in the world by 2030 (Biswas, 2024). Additionally, it is witnessing a significant reduction in educational disparities between boys and girls. There is a popular belief that such rapid changes will substantially enhance gender equality, including the position of middle-aged and older adult widows, in the coming decades, even without any external interventions.

However, contrary to such a euphoric view, the situation for widows may not improve as expected. India is projected to become older before becoming affluent (Biswas, 2024; James and Goli, 2017). The lack of credible social support systems alongside health system constraints will affect the status and well-being of India’s elderly, especially older adults from vulnerable communities, such as widows. Additionally, the participation of women in the labour force has not been commensurate with economic growth (Lahoti and Swaminathan, 2016; Marois et al. 2022), which has implications for the future financial security of widowed women. Last, the government of India relies on family members continuing to provide care for older adults in India (Chakravorty et al. 2021). As India’s population ages, tension is growing between policy expectations and the potential reluctance of children to care for their parents and grandparents, especially due to the rising “individualistic tendencies of Indian millennials” and “growing nucleation of families” (Chakravorty et al. 2021). Older adults, especially widows, will have to rely heavily on informal caregiving during a time when there is evidence indicating that household-level elderly abuse is increasing and the balance of power may be shifting towards children and away from parents (Chakravorty et al. 2021).

Given these economic concerns, an urgent need exists to predict future trends concerning the compounding disadvantages that widowed adults, and especially Indian widows, will face. Indian widows have endured and continue to encounter socioeconomic and health challenges, along with pervasive discrimination based on gender, marital status and age; issues that are likely to impact an even larger population of widows in the future. Our article examines the following question: Considering India’s demographic and economic changes over the next two decades, will the current socioeconomic and health disadvantages experienced by widows (compared with widowers) worsen, remain unchanged or improve? We argue that the existing disadvantage gap between widows and widowers will widen over the next two decades. To expand on our argument, we first compare the current socioeconomic and health status of widowed and non-widowed men and women aged 45 and older in India, asserting that widows are disproportionately worse off. Next, we argue that the larger population of widows will face greater socioeconomic and health adversities than widowers two decades from now compared with today. Finally, we suggest policies to mitigate the disproportionate burden of disadvantages that widows in India are likely to face.

Here, we compare the socioeconomic and health disadvantages of widowed and non-widowed men and women to show that widowhood affects women more than men. We rely on data from the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (2017–18), or LASI, a nationally representative study of 73396 Indian adults aged 45 and older and their spouses (Arokiasamy et al. 2022; Bloom et al. 2021). Using the LASI dataset made publicly available by the International Institute for Population Sciences, we excluded respondents younger than 45 years (n = 6790) and dropped participants with missing data on the socioeconomic and health indicators of interest (n = 1265). The definitions and classifications of these outcomes are provided in the Supplementary material Table S.1. Ultimately, our sample consisted of 65341 adults, of whom 11715 were widows and 2784 were widowers. We utilised Stata 18.5 for all computations, adjusting for sampling weights at the national level.

In making our future predictions, we are not arguing that widow-widower inequality in India cannot decrease in the upcoming decades. Indeed, substantial changes in public policy design and implementation, such as overhauling the social pension scheme and revamping health measures, could reduce the widow-widower disadvantage gap (Agarwal et al. 2020). Our predictions indicate that specialised policy and programmatic efforts are necessary to address widows’ social, economic and health challenges. Widows’ higher rates of multimorbidity and financial stress compared with those of widowers likely correspond to feelings of loneliness and isolation. Support from family, friends and neighbours; greater involvement in social clubs and activities; and community engagement fostered by local organisations can significantly enhance widows’ social support (Das et al. 2024; George et al. 2023a).

Furthermore, widows’ financial security and health must be strengthened to help them withstand adversities. Despite the limited financial assistance provided by widow pensions in India, research shows that receiving these pensions can help alleviate poverty among economically disadvantaged widows and lower the mortality risk for younger widows (Garroway, 2013; Hossain and James, 2024). Although they have significant benefits, the national coverage of widow pensions was only 22%, according to the India Development Health Survey 2011–12 (Drèze and Khera, 2017). An increased pension amount for widows in need, combined with broader pension coverage, would likely expedite poverty alleviation and improve the well-being of vulnerable widows. Evidence suggests that in addition to pensions, participation in regular paid work has concrete health benefits for widows in India, such as reducing the mortality of widows aged 60 and older (Hossain and James, 2024). Creating tailored age- and gender-appropriate employment opportunities could have a significant dual impact, enhancing both the financial and the health status of all widows, and particularly older widows.

Last, although widows have the same rights to their deceased husband’s property as siblings or children, they often fail to take advantage of the inheritance and property rights to which they are entitled (Agarwal et al. 2020; Aggarwal, 2025). Policy efforts are needed to ensure that middle-aged and older women (especially widows) have higher levels of legal literacy and legal counsel, and to empower widows to stand up for their inheritance rights in a sociocultural milieu in which this is not encouraged (Aggarwal, 2025). While widow remarriage among middle-aged and older women is still a rare occurrence in India, there is a chance that it will increase in the future (Chakravorty et al. 2021). This may provide some financial relief for a small pool of low-income widows.

In addition to pensions, paid work and socio-legal reforms, increasing access to health insurance and healthcare services is necessary to improve the health of widows. Current evidence indicates that there are barriers to care; widows are more likely than widowers to use public healthcare services (Hossain et al. 2023), but they have lower utilisation rates (George et al. 2023b; Jain et al. 2022). Further research exploring the contextual factors that influence healthcare access and utilisation among widows is essential for crafting effective national and state policies to ensure access to high-quality, affordable healthcare services for all widows, regardless of their socioeconomic status or age group. Although reducing the disproportionate disadvantages that widows in India face over the next two decades is a challenge, our proposed solutions represent steps in the right direction.