Breaking down the question
This twenty-mark question has two linked parts. The first asks whether ageing is an emerging issue — a question of demographic trend and social recognition. The second asks you to discuss the major problems of the elderly, which requires a structured account of economic, health, social and emotional difficulties. Answer both parts fully; a script that discusses problems but neglects to establish that ageing is genuinely emerging will lose marks.
The word emerging is significant. It signals that ageing is a relatively new concern in a society long characterised by youthful demographics, and that its emergence is tied to demographic transition, longer life expectancy and changing family structures.
How to approach it
Begin by establishing the demographic and social evidence that ageing is indeed emerging — rising life expectancy, a growing share and absolute number of the elderly, and the falling birth rate that reshapes the age pyramid. Explain why this is now recognised as a social issue rather than a purely private, family matter.
Then organise the second part thematically. Group the problems of the elderly into economic insecurity, health and care, social and emotional isolation, and the special vulnerability of elderly women. Use the transformation of the joint family as the connecting thread, and close with a note on policy and the road ahead.
Model answer
Ageing has clearly become an emerging issue in Indian society. For most of the twentieth century India was a young country, but demographic transition has changed this. Falling fertility and rising life expectancy have steadily increased both the proportion and the absolute number of persons above sixty, and projections indicate this share will rise substantially in the coming decades. What was once absorbed silently within the family has now surfaced as a recognised social and policy concern, marked by the enactment of maintenance legislation and the framing of a national policy for older persons.
Ageing has emerged as an issue partly because the traditional support structures that once cared for the old are themselves changing. The joint family, described by Irawati Karve as the foundation of Indian kinship, has been eroded by migration, urbanisation and the spread of the nuclear household. As the young move to cities and abroad, many elderly are left without co-resident care, so ageing becomes visible as a problem in a way it was not before.
The major problems of the elderly can be discussed under several heads. Economically, most older people in India lack pensions or savings, having worked in the informal sector, and become dependent on children whose willingness and capacity to support them cannot be assumed. Poverty and insecurity in old age are therefore widespread.
In terms of health, longer life brings a heavy burden of chronic and degenerative illness at a time when geriatric care, affordable medicine and long-term care facilities remain scarce. The cost of health care can impoverish an elderly household rapidly.
Socially and emotionally, the elderly face loneliness, loss of authority and a diminished role. Where once age commanded respect and decision-making power within the family, rapid social change has weakened the standing of the old, and the death of a spouse deepens isolation. Neglect and, in some cases, abuse within the family have become matters of public concern.
Elderly women are especially vulnerable. As Leela Dube's work on gender and kinship suggests, women's dependence across the life course leaves widows without property, income or independent status, so they face old age with the fewest resources and the greatest insecurity.
Ageing is therefore both an emerging demographic reality and a growing social challenge. Meeting it will require the extension of pensions and social security, investment in geriatric health and care, and a renewal of intergenerational responsibility supported, but not replaced, by the state.
Examiner's perspective
Examiners expect both halves of this question answered with equal care. Establishing that ageing is emerging demands actual demographic reasoning — transition, life expectancy, the changing age structure — not mere assertion. In the second half, the strongest scripts organise the problems thematically and connect them to the transformation of the joint family and the specific vulnerability of elderly women. Citing kinship scholars such as Karve and Dube and closing with a policy-oriented conclusion lifts a twenty-mark answer into the top band.