No longer just jewellery: How young Indians are rewriting their relationship with gold

For years, a pair of heavy gold bangles, an elaborate bridal necklace and a handful of ornate heirloom pieces lay untouched in a bank locker in Mumbai—treasured more for the memories they carried than for their monetary value.

Then came a life-changing decision. Ritu and Madan Patil (names changed), a couple in their late 20s, who had inherited the jewellery, chose to do the unthinkable sell the gold. While they understood the emotional bond the heirlooms held, they wanted to use it for something important buy their first home in the city.

They got nearly Rs 20 lakh from selling the gold, which boosted the down payment for their dream home in Navi Mumbai. The decision paid off immediately: their monthly home loan instalment dropped by around Rs 20,000, easing the financial burden and freeing up disposable income to indulge in weekend getaways in Lonavala every alternate month.

“Younger generations are driven by milestones. For them, old jewellery is no longer an emotional burden they feel compelled to hold on to for life,” says Keyur Shah, CEO of Muthoot Exim, a gold recycling company.

Golden opportunity

Across India, a growing number of Gen Z and millennial consumers are unlocking the value of idle gold and rewriting India’s age-old relationship with it. Many are selling inherited jewellery to finance milestones—buy a home, pursue higher education, launch a business, or reinvest the proceeds in wealth-creating financial assets. Others are walking into premium jewellery stores and exchanging traditional ornaments for contemporary designs that better reflect their taste, lifestyle and aspirations.

“Gold is Lakshmi (the Hindu goddess of wealth). When that gold is recycled to fund education, Lakshmi transforms into Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge and wisdom,” says Rajiv Popley, director of the Popley Group, a family-owned luxury enterprise known for its jewellery business.

Popley says people are recycling inherited jewellery without any qualms. “Our stores have become scrap-buying centres—handling old jewellery, evaluating its purity and processing it for recycling has evolved into an entirely new logistical operation,” he says, adding that nearly 70-75% of purchases across Popley outlets now involve gold exchanged by customers.

He says India has only scratched the surface. “More than 1 lakh tonnes of gold are lying idle in Indian lockers. Only a fraction of it has been recycled,” he says.

India continues to be the world’s largest consumer of gold jewellery. Beneath that enduring love for the yellow metal, a shift is underway.

Demand for gold jewellery, measured by volume, plunged 21% year-on-year in FY2026, but investment demand for gold bars and coins surged by about 22% in the same period, according to ICRA’s analysis based on data from the Gold Council of India. This divergence points to a changing mindset, particularly among younger Indians, who view gold less as an ornament and more as an investment.

Shining asset

The change in mindset is reflected in the decision of a 25-year-old banker in Bengaluru. As domestic gold prices soared—rising 33% year-on-year in FY2025 and surging 60% in FY2026—she seized the opportunity to sell her inherited jewellery and channel the proceeds into a diversified equity portfolio.

“Gold is an asset, not something that has to stay locked away forever,” she says, requesting anonymity. “If prices are at record highs and I can redeploy that money into investments with better long-term potential, I’m comfortable making that choice.”

Supriya Venkatesh, 29, who also resides in Bengaluru, recently exchanged her mother’s jewellery that was passed down to her for her wedding last year. “Initially, my mother was very hesitant, but I managed to convince her,” she says. “In today’s age, decades-old jewellery looks outdated.”

Tannishtha Arora, a 31-year-old doctor in Delhi, echoes the sentiment. “Jewellery passed down from our mothers and grandmothers is often too heavy and dated in design to be worn daily. If it’s only going to sit in a locker as an investment, it might as well be converted into gold bars or coins,” she says.

This shift is driven by the soaring price of gold.

Price push

Gold prices in India climbed past Rs 160,000 for 10 grams earlier this year before moderating in recent months. For a generation raised on financial planning and portfolio diversification, the emotional pull of heirloom jewellery is giving way to the practical logic of wealth creation.

In a Bengaluru household, three generations were united by this need to unlock an age-old asset. A 24-year-old, his parents and grandparents agreed that the family’s idle jewellery could serve a better purpose than remain locked away in bank. They sold a portion of the gold, raising nearly Rs 80 lakh. Part of the proceeds financed the young man’s master’s degree in US, while another portion became seed capital for his father’s new food processing business.

“Our parents always told us that gold is meant for difficult times and for life’s major milestones,” he says, requesting anonymity. “Higher education and starting a business are exactly those kinds of milestones. That’s what the gold was meant for.”

The broader trend of treating gold as a financial asset is unlikely to reverse anytime soon, especially with prices remaining high.

“Even after the recent correction, gold price remains far above its historical average, encouraging households to sell or exchange old jewellery and prompting large jewellery chains to expand gold-recycling and -exchange programmes that reduce their need for fresh gold,” says Ajay Srivastava, founder of Delhi-based trade think tank GTRI.

The changing behaviour of young Indians is visible in jewellery shops. In the past nine months, jewellery retailer Tanishq, for example, has actively encouraged customers to exchange old ornaments for new ones, positioning the initiative as part of a broader effort to boost domestic gold recycling and curb the country’s reliance on imports.

“We are grateful to the more than 500,000 customers who have responded to our call by exchanging over 11,000 kg of gold in this short period,” says Arun Narayan, CEO of the jewellery division at Titan Company.

According to Sanchari Basu Chaudhuri, a sociologist at Pune’s Symbiosis Law School, young Indians are increasingly opting for paper gold through instruments such as gold ETF, while those buying jewellery are gravitating towards lighter designs in 18-carat gold or lower, largely in response to soaring prices.

She adds that the growing participation of women in the workforce is also reshaping investment preferences. “As more women earn and accumulate savings, many are opting to invest their money in residential or rental real estate rather than hold large quantities of gold, which entails storage costs and security concerns, whether kept in bank lockers or at home,” she says.

But if gold is increasingly viewed through the lens of financial returns, will the emotions associated with the yellow metal eventually fade away? Not quite.

“As gold becomes more expensive, the jewellery gifted on occasions such as weddings and festivals may acquire an even greater emotional significance,” says Chaudhuri. She adds that the cultural prominence of gold varies across the country, increasing as one moves from the north to the south, where gold occupies a central place.

Who gains?

While the recent surge in gold recycling and sale will likely continue, it also raises an important question: who stands to gain more from bigger transactions customer or jeweller?

“The economics often favour the jeweller,” says Srivastava of GTRI. He points out that advances in jewellery manufacturing now enable designers to create ornaments that appear larger and more intricate without using additional gold.

He also notes that many customers exchange 22-carat jewellery for contemporary designs in 18 carats, which are lighter, more durable and increasingly fashionable.

“While both pieces may each weigh 20 grams, a 22-carat ornament contains about 18.3 grams of pure gold, compared with only 15 grams in an 18-carat ornament,” he explains.

That, however, does not make the transaction unfair. The arrangement is entirely legitimate, he says, provided the lower purity is transparently disclosed and the new jewellery carries the appropriate hallmark.

According to ICRA’s estimates released in May, India’s domestic jewellery industry is expected to grow by around 15% in value in the current financial year, driven largely by elevated gold prices and robust investment demand. Yet, gold jewellery consumption by volume is projected to decline once again.

In other words, consumers are likely to keep monetising idle gold—either by selling or exchanging it.

Black, white & yellow

But not every customer walking into a jewellery showroom is a Gen Z or a millennial reimagining the role of inherited gold.

R Prasad, former chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), says a section of recycled gold has a murkier origin. “Some of it comes from smuggled gold. In such cases, the process is less about recycling old jewellery into new designs and more about converting black money into white,” he says, adding that gold smuggling typically rises when customs duties are hiked.

Prasad points out that recycling smuggled gold is hardly a new phenomenon; only its methods have evolved. “In the late 1970s, we investigated a case involving gold smuggled through Nepal. They were recycled into gold bars and then used to finance the purchase of motor vehicles,” he recalls. At the time, the Kolkata-Jamshedpur belt had emerged as a major hub for such illicit activity. “Back then, recycling was largely informal. Today’s organised retailers were not part of the ecosystem.”

The gold hasn’t changed. The generation has. And for Gen Z and millennials, the new mantra is simple: the gold in the locker doesn’t glitter.

More than 500,000 customers exchanged over 11,000 kg of gold in the past nine months at Tanishq outlets.