Revision summary
Active ageing is a global health-and-participation goal with local delivery. India’s longer lives and changing families make it a domestic policy issue. Care of the elderly falls on women by kinship rule. Male migration and informal paid care deepen that skew. Without pensions and shared care, active ageing is women’s extra shift.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
Active ageing has become a glocal goal because longer lives, shrinking families, and global health talk now meet local kinship. Yes, elderly care in developing countries is disproportionately gendered. Daughters-in-law and daughters do the body work.
Body
Why a glocal goal
- Global: WHO and UN frames treat ageing as a development issue of health, work, and participation, not only as a rich-country hobby.
- Local: India is greying while pensions are thin and the joint family is changing, so ‘active’ is a policy hope against a care crisis.
- Glocal means the slogan travels; the means are NFSA, pensions, and neighbourhoods, not Scandinavian wards.
Gendered caregiving
- I agree. Patriarchy assigns care to women as an extension of Seed-and-Earth domestic duty.
- Sons inherit; women nurse. Migration of men thickens the daughter-in-law’s load in villages.
- Paid geriatric work is also female and informal, underemployed and unprotected, the same informalization seen in the wider labour market.
- Developing-country welfare is household-based; the household is a gender factory.
Why
- Honour forbids sending parents to an institution even when women already do a double shift.
- State care is residual, so the ‘family’ in policy is a woman.
What active ageing needs
- Pensions, health, and men’s share of care, or the goal will mean busy grandmothers, not equal ageing.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD G[Global ageing talk] --> L[Local thin pensions] L --> A[Active ageing goal] P[Patriarchy] --> W[Women as carers]
Conclusion
Active ageing is glocal because demographic ageing is global while care remains local. Elderly caregiving in developing countries is disproportionately gendered because patriarchy and thin public care dump the body work on women.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Write a note on G.S.Ghurye's Indological perspective of understanding Indian society.
Next question on this syllabus topic (2018 · Q1(a)). View answer →
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Does joint family solve ageing?
It can shelter. It usually assigns the labour to women.
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Is active ageing only about gyms?
It should mean health, income and voice, not only fitness ads.
Same topic · past papers
UPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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2015 · Q3(c) · Sociology GS 2 · 15 marks
Discuss the problems of elderly in India. What are the different perspectives to solve their problems?\.
More from this topic
Q5(e) · UPSC Mains 2026 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks · Solution
Bring out the debates of 'insiders' and 'outsiders' approaches in understanding Indian society.
Perspectives on the study of Indian society
• The insider (emic) approach studies Indian society using native categories, sacred texts, and cultural immersion, championed by G.S. Ghurye and D.P. Mukerji. • Critics argue the insider view suffers from upper-caste bias and ignores ground realities in favor of normative texts. • The outsider (etic) approach applies universal models and comparative frameworks, famously used by Western scholars like Louis Dumont. • Critics dismiss the outsider view as orientalist reductionism that imposes Western concepts and misinterprets local idioms. • Modern Indian sociology bridges this binary through a reflexive methodology combining cultural familiarity with analytical rigor. • Ultimately, combining native insights with objective scrutiny is essential to capture India's complex social dynamics.
Q5(a) · UPSC Mains 2026 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks · Solution
Discuss the challenges faced by the aged people in receiving 'elder care'.
Perspectives on the study of Indian society
• India's aging population faces severe elder care challenges due to the breakdown of traditional joint families and youth out-migration. • Over 80% of seniors lack formal pensions because they worked in the informal sector, worsening financial vulnerability. • High out-of-pocket medical costs for chronic illnesses quickly drain meager personal savings. • Public hospitals suffer from an acute shortage of geriatric specialists, dedicated wards, and rehabilitation facilities. • Implementation of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 remains weak, leaving legal tribunals overburdened. • Solutions require shifting from a welfare approach to a rights-based framework, combining community care networks with strict legal enforcement under Article 41.
Q4(c) · UPSC Mains 2026 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks · Solution
Compare G. S. Ghurye's and A. R. Desai's approaches used in understanding Indian society
Perspectives on the study of Indian society
• **Ghurye’s Indological Approach:** Relied on sacred texts and classical literature to study Indian society through civilizational continuity. • **Core Themes in Ghurye:** Focused on caste, kin, and how Hinduism historically integrated diverse tribal and regional groups. • **Desai’s Materialist Approach:** Rejected textual idealism in favor of Marxist political economy to study social structures. • **Economic Formations:** Analyzed Indian society through successive modes of production—ancient, feudal, and colonial capitalist. • **Caste vs. Class:** Viewed caste and religion as superstructural elements that mask underlying economic exploitation. • **Critique of State and Nationalism:** Argued that the nationalist movement was bourgeois, leaving agrarian inequalities intact post-independence. • **Key Contrast:** Ghurye highlights cultural tradition and integration, while Desai emphasizes economic power and class conflict.