UPPSC 2022 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 45 of 150

Correct — B, Working population of 15 to 59 years. The demographic dividend is the growth advantage a country gets when the share of people of working age rises above the share of dependants, so answering it means knowing where the working-age band is drawn — and here two conventions are in play, both legitimate. India's own official statistics, including the Economic Survey, the Census and the NSSO/Periodic Labour Force Survey, routinely treat 15–59 as the working-age group, and this key follows that domestic convention. The international convention, used by the United Nations, UNFPA and the World Bank, draws the same band at 15–64: UNFPA defines the demographic dividend as the growth potential arising when the share of the working-age population aged 15 to 64 exceeds the non-working-age share. Neither figure is wrong; they are different national and international statistical practices, and this paper is not the place to adjudicate between them. What settles the question is that 15–64 is not on offer at all — of the four printed options only (b) names anything resembling a working-age band, and the other three name a mis-drawn band, the elderly, or infants. Note also that the stem is loosely worded: strictly the dividend is the economic opportunity created by the age-structure shift, not the working-age population itself.

• (a)Working population of 14 to 50 years — Neither boundary corresponds to any statistical convention. Indian labour-force statistics count from age 15, not 14, and no definition of the demographic dividend closes the working-age band at 50 — that would discard a full decade of working life at the upper end. The option is built to look plausible by sitting one year below and nine years short of the real band.
• (c)Working population of above 60 years — This is the dependent elderly cohort, not the working-age group, and a rising share of it produces the opposite of a dividend. When the over-60 population grows faster than the working-age population the old-age dependency ratio rises and the demographic window begins to close — the position Japan and much of Europe are already in and which India will reach in later decades.
• (d)0 – 6 years population — The 0–6 group is the child population that the Census reports separately — it is the base of the child sex ratio — and it belongs to the numerator of the young-dependency ratio, the exact opposite of the working-age group. A country with an unusually large 0–6 cohort is at the START of the transition, still carrying a heavy child-dependency burden, not enjoying a dividend.

The demographic dividend is a by-product of the demographic transition. As a country's death rate falls first and its birth rate falls afterwards, it passes through a phase in which the large cohorts born during the high-fertility years have grown up into working age while the cohorts behind them are smaller. For a few decades the working-age share of the population therefore rises and the dependency ratio — dependants divided by the working-age population — falls. That is the demographic window. It is important to be precise about what the dividend is: it is not extra people and it is not automatic growth. It is a POTENTIAL, realised only if the extra workers find productive employment, which is why policy discussion of the dividend is really discussion of skilling, education, health and female labour-force participation. If the jobs do not appear, the same age structure yields a demographic burden instead.

The examiner is testing a definition, and the trap is that the definition has two respectable numerical forms. A candidate who has prepared from UNFPA or World Bank material will look for 15–64, not find it, and hesitate — which is where the wrong instinct to pick the nearest-looking wrong option comes from. The correct reading is that this paper follows Indian official usage, where 15–59 is the standard working-age band, and that in any case elimination decides the question: options (c) and (d) name dependants rather than workers, and option (a) uses boundaries no statistical system uses. It is worth carrying both bands in your head and reading the paper you are sitting: UPPSC's own 2019 question on the dependency ratio used 15–59, while UPSC's 2011 question on the demographic dividend used 15–64.

• Indian official usage — the Economic Survey, the Census and the NSSO/Periodic Labour Force Survey — commonly treats 15–59 years as the working-age population, and 0–14 plus 60-and-above as dependants.
• International usage — the United Nations, UNFPA and the World Bank — defines the working-age population as 15–64 and treats 65-and-above as the elderly dependants; UNFPA's own definition of the demographic dividend uses the 15-to-64 band.
• The dividend is a potential, not an outcome: it is realised only through employment, skilling and health investment, which is why UPSC has asked what India must DO to obtain its full benefit rather than what the dividend is.
• The dependency ratio falls when the working-age share rises; the window closes as the over-60 (or over-65) share grows, converting the dividend into an ageing burden.
• UPPSC and UPSC have used different bands in their own past papers — UPPSC 2019 framed a dependency-ratio question around 15–59, UPSC 2011 framed a demographic-dividend question around 15–64.

• Assuming a single universal age band. India's own statistics use 15–59 while the UN system uses 15–64; read which convention the paper in front of you is written in, and note that both may appear in the same year's coaching material.
• Equating the demographic dividend with a large population. A country can be very populous and have no dividend at all — what matters is the SHARE of working-age people relative to dependants, not the absolute number of people.
• Treating the dividend as automatic. Without employment, skilling and health investment the same age structure becomes a demographic burden; UPSC has asked this directly.

UPPSC asks the definition itself — the age band, or the reason the dependency ratio is falling — and expects the Indian 15–59 convention. UPSC has consistently gone one step past the definition and asked what the dividend depends on: its 2011 question asked which age group produces it (using 15–64) and its 2013 question asked what India must do to reap it. Prepare the number for UPPSC and the policy argument for UPSC.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The dependency ratio of a country falls when :

  • (a)the share of the population aged 0–14 years rises
  • (b)the share of the population aged 60 years and above rises
  • (c)the share of the working-age population rises relative to dependants
  • (d)the absolute size of the total population rises

  Answer(c) the share of the working-age population rises relative to dependants — the dependency ratio is dependants divided by the working-age population, so it falls precisely when the working-age share grows. Options (a) and (b) each raise the ratio, and (d) does not affect it at all since it changes the numerator and denominator together.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following best describes the demographic dividend ?

  • (a)a guaranteed rise in national income caused by population growth
  • (b)the growth potential created when the working-age share of the population exceeds the dependant share
  • (c)the transfer payments made by government to the elderly population
  • (d)the fall in the birth rate that follows a fall in the death rate

  Answer(b) the growth potential created when the working-age share of the population exceeds the dependant share — it is a potential, not a guarantee, and is realised only if the additional workers are productively employed. Option (d) describes the demographic transition, which is the process that opens the window rather than the dividend itself.