1978 to 2026: The Chart That Shows Why Your Children Might Be Alone
I Was Born in 1978. My Generation Might Be India's Luckiest — And I'm Not Sure the Next One Knows It Yet Look at the chart below. In 1978, the year I was born, about 2.44 crore children were born in India. By 2001, that number had climbed to about 2.93 crore . Today? It's fallen to about 2.25 crore . This isn't just a chart of birth counts. It's a chart of who's going to be around when we're old. My father's generation never had to plan for retirement the way we think about it now. Why? Because a son was the pension plan. Children were the social security. The family was the safety net — and the law, and society, backed that arrangement up. I count myself lucky too. I have children. When I'm old, I hope they're there — not for my money, but for the things money doesn't buy: someone to call, someone to sit with, someone to be there at the end. Now look at the generation born around 2001. They're nearly 25 today — one of the large...