Abstract WP23-01

Using National Transfer Accounts (NTA) methodology, this paper calculates the cost of children, youth, adults and elderly in India’s generational economy. Age-specific and lifetime costs of these generations are measured in terms of per capita consumption expenditure and distinguished by public and private consumption of education, health and others. Relative cost of children, youth and elderly is determined with respect to cost of adults, and uniqueness and similarities of cost components are compared across generations. Variations in generational costs over time are distinguished between inflation effect and resource allocation effect. These analyses are useful for forward-looking policy interventions, such as, projecting resource requirements for implementation of National Education Policy 2020 for school education, financing UN-SDGs as they are related to human development, and for strategizing and financing human capital investment for children in India’s generational economy. The approach and implications are of general relevance to other generational economies, subject to the comparability of socio-economic and demographic structures.