UPPSC 2019 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 109 of 150

Correct — C, population of 15-59 years is relatively high. The dependency ratio sets the population presumed not to be economically productive — conventionally children aged 0-14 and persons aged 60 and above, in the Indian convention — against the working-age population in between. Written out, it is (0-14 plus 60 and above) divided by (15-59), usually multiplied by 100. Because it is a ratio, it falls only when the denominator grows faster than the numerator. That is exactly what India has been going through: fertility has been declining for decades, so each new cohort of children is proportionately smaller and the 0-14 share keeps shrinking, while the very large cohorts born in the high-fertility decades have moved into the 15-59 band. Life expectancy has risen, but the 60-plus share is still comparatively small, so it has not yet offset the fall in the child share. The result is a working-age population that is large relative to dependants — the condition economists call India's demographic dividend — and a dependency ratio that is falling. Note how cleanly the options separate: (a), (b) and (d) all describe parts of the numerator, and a bigger numerator would raise the ratio. Only (c) describes the denominator.

• (a)Population of 0-14 years is relatively high — The 0-14 group is the child-dependency part of the numerator. A relatively large child population pushes the dependency ratio up, not down — and in any case India's 0-14 share has been shrinking as fertility falls, which is one of the two reasons the ratio is declining.
• (b)Population of 60 years and above is relatively high — The 60-plus group is the old-age-dependency part of the numerator, so a high elderly share also raises the ratio. India's elderly share is indeed rising and will eventually push the dependency ratio back up, closing the demographic dividend window — but that works in the opposite direction from the decline the question describes.
• (d)Population of 0-14 years and 60 years and above together are relatively high — This is the entire numerator. If both dependent groups were relatively large the ratio would be at its highest, not declining. It is the classic 'sum of two wrong answers' option, and it is tempting only because it correctly names the two dependent age groups.

The dependency ratio is a demographic accounting device, not a measure of who actually works. It divides the population into three age bands and asks how many people in the notionally dependent bands each hundred people of working age must support. Indian official practice uses 0-14 and 60-plus as the dependent bands with 15-59 as working age; United Nations and World Bank series usually use 15-64 with 65-plus as elderly, so the same country can show two different ratios depending on the source. The total ratio splits into a child dependency ratio and an old-age dependency ratio, and the two move in opposite directions as a country passes through the demographic transition. Fertility falls first, so the child ratio drops for several decades while the elderly ratio is still small; the total ratio therefore dips, and that dip is the demographic dividend window. Later, as the large working-age cohorts themselves age, old-age dependency rises and the total ratio climbs again.

Read this question as arithmetic before you read it as demography. 'Declining ratio' means the denominator is winning, so scan the options for the one that names the denominator. Three of the four options — 0-14, 60-plus, and the two together — are all numerator terms, and any of them being 'relatively high' would push the ratio up. Only 15-59 sits below the line. You can answer this without knowing a single Indian statistic, which is the safest way to handle it since the actual numbers vary by source and by which working-age band the source uses.

• Dependency ratio = (population aged 0-14 + population aged 60 and above) divided by population aged 15-59, usually expressed per 100. Indian official practice uses the 15-59 working-age band; UN and World Bank series generally use 15-64 with 65 and above as elderly
• It splits into a child dependency ratio (0-14) and an old-age dependency ratio (60 and above, or 65 and above)
• India's ratio has been falling because declining fertility shrinks the child share while the large cohorts already born move into the working ages — the demographic dividend window
• The dividend is a potential, not an automatic gain: a large working-age population raises output only if it is healthy, educated, skilled and actually employed
• Indian states are at very different stages — Kerala and Tamil Nadu are already ageing while Bihar and Uttar Pradesh still have young age structures — so the national ratio conceals wide variation, and UP's own window closes later than the national one

• Mixing the working-age bands: 15-59 in Indian official usage, 15-64 in UN and World Bank data — the ratios are not comparable across the two
• Assuming a falling dependency ratio automatically produces faster growth; without jobs and skills the dividend can become a liability
• Forgetting that the elderly are dependants too, so India's ratio will rise again as the working-age cohorts age

UPPSC asks the arithmetic and the age bands directly, as here; UPSC frames the same idea as the 'demographic dividend' and asks either what causes it (2011) or what India must do to realise it (2013).

• practice — not a real PYQ

  India's demographic dividend window is expected to close when:

  • (a)the total fertility rate falls below the replacement level
  • (b)the share of population aged 60 and above rises enough to push the dependency ratio up again
  • (c)the 0-14 population begins to grow in absolute numbers
  • (d)life expectancy at birth crosses 70 years

  Answer(b) when the elderly share rises enough to push the dependency ratio back up — old-age dependency eventually outweighs the shrinking child dependency and the window closes.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The old-age dependency ratio is the ratio of:

  • (a)population aged 0-14 to population aged 15-59
  • (b)population aged 60 and above to population aged 15-59
  • (c)population aged 60 and above to the total population
  • (d)non-workers to workers

  Answer(b) population aged 60 and above to the working-age population — option (a) defines the child dependency ratio, and option (c) is the proportion of elderly in the population, a different measure.