Uneven ageing: Why Sri Lanka’s districts face different retirement crises

Ceylinco Life Director/Chief Operating Officer Samitha Hemachandra  

Retirement in Sri Lanka is not the same experience for every person. Two workers can spend decades contributing to the Employees’ Provident Fund or Employees’ Trust Fund, retire at a similar age, and draw broadly comparable balances, and yet face entirely different financial realities in the years that follow. The difference is not discipline or income alone. It is geography.

Sri Lanka is ageing faster than almost any other country in South Asia. According to the United Nations World Population Prospects 2024 revision, life expectancy at birth in Sri Lanka now stands at approximately 77.67 years, with women expected to live to 80.75 years and men to 74.45 years. Declining fertility rates and rising longevity are together positioning Sri Lanka as one of the fastest ageing nations in the region. By 2050, one in four Sri Lankans will be above the age of 60. That shift is already underway, and it is not unfolding uniformly across the island. It is a reality that Ceylinco Life, as Sri Lanka’s life insurance market leader for 22 consecutive years, has been tracking closely across communities and districts throughout the country.

“Sri Lanka’s retirement gap is a structural issue, not a personal failing. The EPF and ETF were designed for a different demographic reality, one where people lived shorter lives, families stayed together, and informal care was reliable. None of those assumptions hold in the same way today. The districts that are ageing fastest are often the least equipped to absorb that change. Addressing this requires both better policy and better individual planning, and neither can wait,” said Ceylinco Life Director/Chief Operating Officer Samitha Hemachandra. 

Geographic disparities

Sri Lanka’s districts face different retirement crises largely because of geographic disparity. There is a stark gap in cost of living figures across the island, with Colombo remaining the most expensive city in the country to live in, while food, healthcare and caregiving continue to top the list of expenditure priorities for the elderly.

The living standards of an elderly person in an urban area differ considerably from those in a rural setting. In urban centres, paid care facilities and retirement homes are more accessible. In most rural districts, elderly individuals live with their children and grandchildren, often confined to a single room. Both arrangements carry financial consequences that most retirement calculations do not account for.

According to the Department of Census and Statistics, an individual in Colombo requires approximately Rs. 18,044 per month to afford essential needs, as of January 2026, the highest figure in the country. Gampaha follows at Rs. 17,951 and Kalutara at Rs. 17,562. Further from the Western Province, the monthly expenditure required eases: Kandy at Rs. 16,983, Galle at Rs. 16,998, Kurunegala at Rs. 16,434, and Jaffna at Rs. 16,327. Monaragala records the lowest figure among the districts at Rs. 15,997.

A gap of more than Rs. 2,000 per month between the costliest and least costly districts may appear modest in isolation. Compounded over a fifteen to twenty year retirement and adjusted for inflation, it represents a meaningful difference in the savings a person needs to have accumulated before leaving the workforce.

Regional economic impact

Inflation is another factor that shapes the quality of retirement, and it is one that most retirement plans underestimate. Living costs rise in response to both predictable and unpredictable forces, and the cumulative effect over a decade can be severe.

Data from the Department of Census and Statistics shows a consistent rise in living costs driven by economic disruptions including the pandemic and the country’s 2022 economic crisis. During 2012 and 2013, the national poverty line stood above Rs. 5,000 per month, gradually rising toward Rs. 6,000 by 2016 and Rs. 7,000 by 2019. By early 2025, it had surpassed Rs. 16,000, reaching Rs. 16,730 by April 2026. That is more than a threefold increase in roughly a decade.

A person who retired in 2015 planning for Rs. 30,000 a month in household expenses would need closer to Rs. 90,000 today to maintain the same standard of living. Most retirement calculations made even five years ago did not account for that scale of change. Many people making those calculations today are making the same error again.

Limited healthcare access

After retirement, the need for healthcare does not diminish. It intensifies. Physical health deteriorates over time, and the frequency and cost of medical attention rises accordingly. A specialist consultation at a private hospital in Colombo can range from Rs. 2,000 to Rs. 5,000 or more, before investigations or treatment. For a retiree living on a fixed monthly income, a single hospitalisation can erase months of savings.

The challenge is compounded by the effects of outward migration. A significant number of younger Sri Lankans have moved abroad in recent years, drawn by higher wages in caregiving and other sectors. The families they have left behind, often elderly parents in rural districts with limited income, face rising costs and a shrinking pool of family support. The informal care arrangements that previous generations relied upon can no longer be assumed.

In more remote districts, healthcare facilities are fewer, specialist services limited, and travel to access care adds both time and expense. The financial implication is the same whether a retiree lives in Colombo or in a district far from the Western Province: healthcare will consume a growing share of retirement income with each passing year, and the less a person has saved, the more acute that pressure becomes.

Where life insurers come in

This is where the life insurance industry has a meaningful and practical role to play. Life insurers offer something that EPF contributions and personal savings cannot: a long-term, structured commitment to a defined financial outcome. A retirement plan placed with a life insurer is not a passive savings vehicle. It is a contractual arrangement, built around the individual’s specific circumstances and backed by an institution whose financial obligations are governed by strict regulatory requirements around liquidity, solvency, and reserve management.

That regulatory framework matters more than most people realise. Life insurers operate under oversight that requires them to maintain the financial capacity to honour long-term commitments. When a person plans their retirement with a life insurer, the credibility and assurance are not marketing claims. They are built into the regulatory structure itself. The security that comes with a structured life insurance plan is, in that sense, already embedded in how the industry is required to operate.

A solution at every stage of life

One of the most persistent misconceptions about retirement planning is that it is only relevant for the young. A life insurer can structure solutions across a wide range of starting points. A 25-year-old entering the workforce can begin building a retirement foundation that compounds over decades. A 50-year-old who has not yet put a formal plan in place can still access products designed to provide income security, protection, and healthcare coverage in the years immediately ahead. The conversation is not closed because someone has started late.

What changes with age is the structure of the plan, not its relevance. Younger policyholders benefit from lower premiums, longer accumulation periods, and greater compounding. Those closer to or already at retirement benefit from plans oriented toward immediate protection, structured income streams, and coverage for healthcare costs that grow more likely with each passing year. A life insurer with the product range and long-term experience to serve both can meet a client wherever they are in that journey.

Long-term commitment as a core value

Retirement planning through a life insurer is not a transaction. It is a relationship built over years, often decades, grounded in a structured, long-term commitment in which the insurer takes on defined obligations and the policyholder receives defined protections in return. That is fundamentally different from the approach most Sri Lankans currently take, which involves EPF accumulation, informal savings, and the expectation that family will cover whatever remains.

For those funding a future they cannot fully predict, the priority is not maximising short-term returns. It is securing a financial foundation that will hold regardless of what happens to living costs, healthcare, or family circumstances. Life insurance exists precisely for that kind of long-term protection. It is the business of commitments that individuals cannot reliably make alone.

The time to plan is not at retirement

The retirement challenge Sri Lanka faces is not uniform. It varies by district, by income, by family structure, and by the decisions each working adult makes or delays. The data on cost of living, on healthcare, on ageing demographics, all of it points in the same direction. EPF alone is not enough, and the gap between what most people have planned and what they will actually need is wider than most are prepared to acknowledge.

Ceylinco Life, Sri Lanka’s life insurance market leader for 22 consecutive years, has built its core business around long-term commitment to its policyholders. Through its national retirement awareness campaign running throughout 2026, it is working to bring this conversation to Sri Lankans at every stage of life. The need to plan does not arrive at a single moment. It begins with the first salary, and it does not end until the last obligation is met.