Work stress, health and wellbeing: evidence from the older adults labor market in India

Older adults are the most vulnerable group in the labor market, given their physical and functional health risks. Moreover, they are also at a greater risk of psychological factors like work stress due to risk of age, ageism and social well-being. Given these challenges and the growing proportion of older adults in the developing world, this paper studies the theoretical connotation between work stress and health related wellbeing outcomes among working elderly in India. Using BKPAI survey this study adopts multiple modeling approach (descriptive analysis, one-way analysis of variance, and a logit regression model) to test the association between work stress and wellbeing and understand this theoretical connotation in elderly labor market. Our results confirm that work stress is found to be significantly associated with socio-economic and health risks like income, gender, education, morbidity, disability, and socio-psychological barriers among working older adults. Females are likely to have more risk for work stress [OR, 1.72; (95% CI 2.89–2.91)] than males. Similarly, more affluent groups (wealthiest) are less likely to have any work stress [OR, 0.38; (95% CI-0.25–0.58)]. Older adults with multi-morbidity are at greater odds of having work stress [OR 2.26; (95% CI-1.74–2.94)]. Work stress is a common issue that enhances at higher ages due to the work, health, and socio-economic vulnerability of older adults. The study finds a significant impact of these factors on work stress and therefore argues for a comprehensive policy approach to address the psychological health risk of the working older adults in the labor market.