'Rent-a-grandchild': India's growing elder companionship service
India is ageing fast, and loneliness is growing with it. People over 60 made up 10.5 per cent of the population in 2022 and will nearly double to 21 per cent by 2050, when about 347 million elderly Indians will need special care, the India Ageing Report 2023 projects.
Across India, many elderly people live alone as their children settle abroad or in other cities. To bridge the gap, new services now let families 'rent a grandchild' to provide companionship, and the industry is growing fast.
India is ageing fast: those over 60 were 10.5 per cent of the population in 2022 and will nearly double to 21 per cent by 2050, the India Ageing Report 2023 projects; about 347 million elderly Indians will then need special care.
Raju, a postgraduate in social work, has cared for the Budhirajas for months. 'I feel he understands me 200 per cent,' said Budhiraja, in his eighties. 'Now he is family to me,' said Raju. His supervisor charges Rs 450 an hour ($5) for 10 hours a month; only affluent urban families can afford it.
India's 2022 survey of over 72,000 people found 13.3 per cent of older adults severely lonely; 37 per cent of those over 60 living alone felt lonely. A 2025 World Health Organization study linked loneliness to about 871,000 deaths a year worldwide.
A 2017 report counted at least five such start-ups; in 2022 the late Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata championed a Mumbai start-up in the space. Companions undergo police verification.
For the workers, the line between job and relationship blurs. Vinay Kumar, a companion in Hyderabad, once cut short a 12-day wedding leave because a client kept calling; when another client died in 2023, her son asked Kumar to perform the last rites with him.
Shilpa Bandyopadhyay of the Jindal Institute of Behavioural Sciences said hiring a companion should not be read as families failing. Asked how he would feel if Raju did not come, Budhiraja replied: 'I will make sure he comes. I need him. As age advances, so do the needs.'
