Fertility rate and demographic transition

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct. The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 imposes a statutory obligation on children and relatives to maintain parents and senior citizens who are unable to maintain themselves. It establishes Maintenance Tribunals with the power to order monthly allowances (subject to a ceiling, which was ₹10,000 per month under the original Act, later proposed for enhancement). The Act thus creates a legally enforceable entitlement, not merely a moral claim. Statement 2 is correct. The Act defines a 'senior citizen' as a citizen of India who is 60 years of age or above. Crucially, the Act's maintenance obligation covers 'parents' separately — a parent need not necessarily be a senior citizen (i.e., aged 60+) to seek maintenance under the Act; however, the 2007 Act does cover parents who are unable to maintain themselves from their own earnings or property. The age-60 definition applies specifically to the 'senior citizen' category. Statement 3 is incorrect, and this is the key doctrinal point. The Act does allow a senior citizen who has transferred property to a relative subject to a condition of maintenance, and where that relative fails to provide such care, to apply for the transfer to be declared void. However, such a transfer is declared void by the Tribunal upon application — it is not treated as void ab initio (i.e., void from the very beginning) automatically. The voidance is prospective, consequential on a finding by the Tribunal, not automatically retroactive to the date of the original transaction. This is a significant legal distinction: void ab initio would mean the transfer never had legal effect at all, whereas the Act's mechanism is that it becomes voidable on Tribunal order upon proof of neglect.

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct. The first demographic dividend is the growth bonus that accrues when the working-age cohort expands relative to dependents (children and elderly). With more productive adults and fewer people to support, savings, investment, and labour productivity all rise — this is the textbook mechanism behind Asia's growth acceleration in the late 20th century, and the World Bank report confirms South Asia's demographic tailwinds contributed about 0.4 percentage points annually to GDP growth over recent decades. Statement 2 is incorrect on two counts. First, while the UN and World Bank do use a 14 per cent share of population aged 65+ as the threshold for 'aged' status, the claim that this transition 'typically takes longer in low-income economies' inverts the empirical pattern. Historically, high-income economies in Western Europe and Japan took many decades (often 50–80 years) to complete this transition, partly because their fertility declines were gradual. Many developing economies, including South Asian ones, are compressing the same transition into far shorter periods — South Asia is projected to complete it in about 25 years, faster than the developing-economy average of 32 years — meaning low-income regions are transitioning faster, not slower. The assertion as stated is therefore conceptually wrong: faster demographic ageing in low-income settings is precisely the risk highlighted, not a slower pace. Statement 3 is correct and captures the core policy risk. 'Ageing before getting rich' (sometimes framed as 'growing old before growing rich') describes the structural vulnerability of economies that exhaust their demographic dividend before they have industrialised sufficiently, built robust social security systems, or raised per capita incomes to levels that can finance aged-care needs. South Asia exemplifies this: its per capita incomes remain among the lowest in the world even as its working-age share approaches its peak — leaving an extremely narrow window to create jobs, accumulate capital, and build long-term care infrastructure before the dependency ratio worsens.

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct. The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is defined as the average number of children a woman would have over her entire reproductive lifetime if prevailing age-specific fertility rates applied throughout. A TFR of 2.1 is the globally accepted replacement-level fertility — the rate at which each generation just replaces itself, accounting for child mortality before reproductive age. Statement 2 is incorrect. TFR and CBR (Crude Birth Rate) measure different things. CBR counts live births per 1,000 persons in the population in a given year, making it sensitive to the age structure of the population (a young population produces a higher CBR even if fertility per woman is low). TFR, by contrast, is a synthetic cohort measure that isolates fertility behaviour per woman over her reproductive lifetime, independent of the population's age structure. They cannot be used interchangeably: CBR does not reveal whether a population is replacing itself generationally, whereas TFR does. Statement 3 is incorrect. A sub-replacement TFR does not cause an immediate population decline. Because of demographic momentum — the large share of young, reproductive-age individuals already in the population — total population size continues to grow for decades even after TFR falls below 2.1. India's current situation illustrates this precisely: TFR has fallen below replacement level, yet the total population is still growing, with the demographic effects (an ageing population, a shrinking working-age share) manifesting gradually over subsequent decades.

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct. The demographic dividend is the accelerated economic growth that can result from a shift in a country's age structure, specifically when the working-age population (15–64 years) is proportionally larger than the non-working-age population. Crucially, this dividend is time-limited: as fertility rates decline and life expectancy rises, the population ages, the working-age share shrinks, and the window for leveraging this dividend closes. India is currently in this transitional phase. Statement 2 is also correct. As the elderly population grows, the old-age dependency ratio — the number of elderly persons per hundred working-age persons — rises. This directly expands the need for personal care, health support, and assisted living services. A rising dependency ratio therefore creates structural demand for a trained, organised caregiving workforce, which is precisely why India's policy discourse has begun treating the care economy as a major social-sector and employment challenge.