What This Means
This research explores what it is like to grow old in Punjab, India, when your children and grandchildren have moved abroad. Based on in-depth ethnographic fieldwork in and around the city of Patiala, the study found a striking paradox: older adults often work hard to help younger family members emigrate — contributing money, connections, and support — but then are left to age alone once those family members leave. Rather than simply feeling abandoned, these older adults understand their situation through the lens of their whole life story, seeing their sacrifices as part of a longer journey, even as they live with the daily reality of missing their kin.
The research also found that aging in Punjab is deeply shaped by frustration with the government. Older adults expressed widespread disenchantment due to unemployment, agricultural hardship, and what they see as government neglect and corruption. At the same time, as internal migrants from other Indian states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar move into Punjab to fill labor and caregiving roles, older adults express anxieties about demographic and cultural changes in their communities. Their relationships with these internal migrants are described as complex — neither simply welcoming nor outright hostile.
This research suggests that growing old is not just a personal or family experience — it is deeply intertwined with migration patterns, political conditions, and social change. For older adults in Punjab, aging means navigating absence, longing, political disappointment, and shifting community composition all at once. The findings highlight the need to understand elder care and aging not in isolation, but as part of broader social and political forces that shape everyday life.