Breaking down the question

The question has three linked demands. First, the problems of an ageing population — the difficulties faced both by the elderly themselves and by a society whose age structure is shifting. Second, a description of the declining traditional support system, which in the Indian context means primarily the joint family and the web of kinship obligations that once guaranteed care for the aged. Third, suggestions for alternative measures to fill the emerging gap.

The examiner is inviting a demographic and structural analysis. Ageing is a product of the demographic transition: as fertility and mortality both fall, the proportion of older persons rises, and a young society begins to grow old. The sociological interest lies in the mismatch between this new demographic reality and the social institutions inherited from an earlier era — institutions that were designed for a world of large families and short lives.

A strong answer connects the three parts through one argument: the problems of the aged are intensifying precisely because the traditional support system is eroding faster than any modern substitute is being built, leaving the elderly in an institutional vacuum.

How to approach it

Organise the answer into three clear blocks, opening with the demographic framing that makes ageing a structural rather than an individual issue. A strong response will:

  • Set out the problems under economic, health, and social-psychological heads.
  • Explain the decline of the joint family, drawing on A. M. Shah on household structure and Irawati Karve on kinship, and link it to urbanisation, migration and changing values.
  • Propose alternatives spanning the family, the state, the community and the market.
  • Stress that the erosion of the intergenerational contract is the pivot connecting all three parts.

Model answer

India, long regarded as a young nation, is quietly ageing. The demographic transition — declining fertility alongside rising life expectancy — is steadily enlarging the share of persons above sixty, and this shift carries profound social consequences. The problems of the ageing population fall into three broad domains.

The first is economic. With retirement or the loss of the capacity to work, many older persons face a sharp fall in income. In a country where the vast majority worked in the unorganised sector without pensions or provident funds, old age often means dependence, and where family support falters, outright destitution. Rising longevity extends the years of dependency, straining whatever savings exist.

The second is health. Ageing brings chronic and degenerative illness, disability and the need for sustained care, at precisely the point when income is lowest. India's health system, oriented towards communicable disease and maternal care, is poorly equipped for geriatric needs, and specialised services are scarce and costly. The burden of care falls disproportionately on families, and within them on women.

The third is social and psychological. This is often the deepest wound. The elderly face a loss of authority and role as the joint household gives way, and many experience isolation, neglect and a sense of redundancy. The transition from being the respected head of a household to a dependent in a nuclear family can be psychologically devastating, producing loneliness, depression and, in extreme cases, abandonment or abuse.

These problems are magnified by the decline of the traditional support system. In the classical Indian pattern, the joint family and the wider kinship network were the natural insurance for old age. The elderly commanded authority as the custodians of property, ritual and wisdom; care flowed to them as a matter of obligation embedded in the intergenerational contract — parents raised children, and children in turn supported parents in old age. Irawati Karve's account of the depth of kinship bonds, and A. M. Shah's careful analysis of the Indian household, describe a system in which the aged were structurally secure.

This system is eroding under several pressures. Urbanisation and labour migration scatter the young in search of work, leaving elderly parents behind in villages or alone in cities. The nuclear household is displacing the joint one, so that co-residence — the physical basis of care — is declining. Values are changing towards individualism and conjugal priorities, weakening the sense of unconditional filial duty. The entry of women into paid employment removes the traditional full-time caregiver from the home. And the transfer of the elderly's functions — economic provision, knowledge, ritual authority — to the market, the school and the state has diminished the very basis of their status. The old were secure because they were needed; as they become less needed, their security dissolves.

Alternative measures must therefore be built deliberately, since the spontaneous family safety-net can no longer be assumed. At the level of the family, the law can reinforce the obligation of maintenance, as the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents legislation attempts, while public messaging can revalue intergenerational care. At the level of the state, a universal, non-contributory old-age pension, expanded geriatric healthcare and social-security cover for the unorganised sector are essential to replace the vanishing family provision. At the community level, day-care centres, old-age homes of good quality, recreation clubs and neighbourhood support networks can combat isolation and offer companionship. The market can contribute through pension products, health insurance and assisted-living services, though these reach mainly the affluent. Crucially, active-ageing policies — continued employment, volunteering and lifelong learning — can restore purpose by keeping the elderly engaged rather than warehoused.

In sum, the ageing of Indian society is a structural transformation that has outpaced its institutions. The traditional family provided care because the elderly were integrated and valued; as that integration weakens, society must consciously construct new forms of support that combine the warmth of the family with the reliability of the state. The alternative is a growing population of the aged left stranded between a receding tradition and an incomplete modernity.

Examiner's perspective

Examiners look for the demographic framing that makes ageing a societal and structural issue rather than a catalogue of the woes of old people. The three parts must each be addressed distinctly, and the analytical pivot — that the elderly's problems intensify because the traditional support system is declining without an adequate replacement — is what binds the answer together.

The distinction that lifts a script is explaining why the joint family provided security, grounded in the intergenerational contract and the functional indispensability of the aged, and then showing precisely how urbanisation, migration, nuclearisation and value change have dismantled that basis. Citing Karve and Shah signals command of the kinship literature. The strongest answers propose alternatives across family, state, community and market rather than gesturing vaguely at old-age homes. Weak scripts list the problems of the old; strong scripts analyse the collapse of an intergenerational institution and the task of rebuilding support around it.