{"id":263790,"date":"2023-10-11T19:32:06","date_gmt":"2023-10-11T14:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=263790"},"modified":"2023-10-12T20:21:22","modified_gmt":"2023-10-12T14:51:22","slug":"mass-ageing-poses-a-challenge-weve-never-faced-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/mass-ageing-poses-a-challenge-weve-never-faced-before\/","title":{"rendered":"Mass ageing poses a challenge we\u2019ve never faced before"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source: <\/strong>This post has been created based on the article \u201cMass ageing poses a challenge we\u2019ve never faced before\u201d<\/strong> published in the Live Mint<\/strong> on 11th<\/sup> October 2023.<\/strong><\/p>\n

UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS Paper 2 Social Justice \u2014 Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections <\/strong>of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these schemes.<\/p>\n

News<\/strong>:\u00a0This article discusses the emerging trends and the consequent challenges of the demographic trend of ageing. It also highlights the trends in India and their possible solutions.<\/p>\n

Ageing is becoming the dominant global demographic trend.<\/p>\n

In 2022, there were nearly 800 million people aged 65+ years comprising 10% of the world’s population. This is likely to increase to 16% by 2050<\/strong> and nearly 25% <\/strong>by the end of the century.<\/p>\n

What are the reasons for this trend?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Rapid and accelerating ageing is taking place on account of declining fertility and increasing longevity.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Global life expectancy <\/strong>has more than doubled over the last century. At the same time, fertility has dropped in every country<\/strong>. For instance, India’s fertility rate has more than halved to 2.0 in just 4 decades.<\/p>\n

What are the opportunities associated with this change?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Experience of the elderly with a wide range of functional capabilities<\/strong> can be utilized. If done systematically and creatively, they can be converted into an asset.<\/p>\n

What are the challenges associated with this change?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Financial burden in low and middle-income countries <\/strong>due to the changing age-distribution, coupled with climate change<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The biggest challenges are related to income security<\/strong>, healthcare<\/strong> and ensuring lives of dignity<\/strong> for the elderly.<\/p>\n

What does the situation in India look like?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

India has the 2nd<\/sup> largest population of elderly<\/strong> at nearly 100 million. By the end of this century, this will rise to 330 million.<\/p>\n

This will lead to issues of elder care, health systems <\/strong>and income and pension security<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Other important issues are the extension of retirement age<\/strong>, increasing employer contribution to pensions<\/strong>, and providing incentives for household savings and elder care<\/strong>, while at the same time focusing on providing employment to youth<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Another complication is a stark difference between states in demographic structure.
\nStates with higher GSDP per capita, like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, have fertility rates well below 2.0, while Uttar Pradesh has a fertility rate of 2.4 and Bihar of 3.0.<\/p>\n

Additionally, women<\/strong> outlive men by about 3-4 years on average, which further leads to the income security problem.<\/p>\n

Defined benefit pensions (DB, where benefits of income and healthcare are assured) have given way to Defined Contribution plans (DC, where tax-advantaged contributions are made). DB plans are unaffordable to employers and DC plans are generally insufficient to cover the cost of increases in lifespan. The net result is a household deficit for elder care<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

What can be the solutions to these challenges?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Firstly<\/strong>, increasing the productive lifespan of people by raising the retirement age.<\/p>\n

Secondly,<\/strong> healthcare and wellness will need to be strengthened including early-motherhood prevention and mitigation of lifestyle diseases. As school-going children decrease, schools will need to be closed and hospitals built instead.<\/p>\n

Thirdly<\/strong>, a ‘calorie’ mindset<\/strong> should give way to a ‘balanced nutrition’ mindset<\/strong> to increase health spans and lessen the financial burden.<\/p>\n

Lastly<\/strong>, an increase in permissible contributions to DC plans will be required, to increase the magnitude of savings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: This post has been created based on the article \u201cMass ageing poses a challenge we\u2019ve never faced before\u201d published in the Live Mint on 11th October 2023. UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS Paper 2 Social Justice \u2014 Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these… Continue reading Mass ageing poses a challenge we\u2019ve never faced before<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,8131],"class_list":["post-263790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-social-issues","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":10,"cached_at":1698438758,"cached_date":1698661931},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}