The missing infrastructure in India’s silver economy isn’t healthcare, it’s community

India’s silver economy is entering a defining phase. As people live longer and stay active longer, the conversation around ageing is expanding from healthcare and senior living to the larger question of how our cities can support participation, independence, and connection across generations.

This is becoming an increasingly important urban question. India’s population aged 60 and above is projected to reach 230 million by 2036, according to a 2026 systematic review of social isolation and loneliness among older adults. The opportunity therefore extends well beyond building healthcare capacity. It is about creating environments where people can keep working, learning, socialising, mentoring, and contributing.

Recent evidence from Bengaluru offers an important perspective. A 2026 assessment of age-friendly communities found that only four of the 27 locations assessed met the criteria for age-friendly living. The finding highlights how age-friendly infrastructure encompasses much more than healthcare. Accessibility, mobility, social participation, public spaces and opportunities for community engagement are equally important components of how people experience a city.

The same principle applies to the workplace. For many experienced professionals, retirement is increasingly becoming a transition rather than a complete departure from professional life. Someone in their 60s may choose to consult, mentor entrepreneurs, advise businesses, pursue a second venture, teach or work on independent projects. These activities require access to professional networks and spaces that support flexibility.

This is where the evolution of flexible workspaces becomes particularly relevant. Coworking spaces have grown into broader workplace ecosystems, offering access to meeting rooms, technology, business infrastructure, networking and communities. Their value increasingly lies not just in the physical infrastructure they provide, but in the connections they enable.

That intergenerational exchange can become a powerful economic and social asset and creates an opportunity to make workspaces more inclusive across life stages.

In this context, the workspace becomes more than a place to work. It becomes a platform for continued participation. This represents an enormous pool of experience, professional knowledge and entrepreneurial capability. The question is how effectively the economy can create avenues for that experience to continue circulating.

Flexible workspace networks can contribute to this ecosystem by creating accessible professional environments where different generations and career stages can interact. With distributed workspace models, these communities can also extend across cities, supporting professionals who increasingly live and work across multiple locations.

For urban planners, developers, businesses and workspace operators, this presents an opportunity to think about age-friendly infrastructure more holistically. Healthcare, housing and mobility will remain essential, but so will the everyday spaces where people can meet, work, learn and participate.

The future of the silver economy can therefore be about much more than extending lifespan. It can be about extending participation. Healthcare can support longer, healthier lives. Community infrastructure can help ensure those years remain connected to opportunity, purpose and people.

As India builds its cities for the decades ahead, the workplace can become an important part of that infrastructure, a place where experience meets ambition, generations exchange ideas and people continue to connect, contribute and create value at every stage of life.

(Kushal Bhargava is Founder of MyBranch)