Child and Human Development II: Children at Risk, Adolescence and Youth, Early and Middle Adulthood, Ageing and Care Needs, and Types of Variables
2. Adolescence and youth: changes, challenges and programmes
The WHO defines adolescents as people aged 10 to 19, youth as 15 to 24 and young people as 10 to 24; India's National Youth Policy 2014 defines youth as 15 to 29. Adolescence brings puberty, with the growth spurt (about two years earlier in girls than in boys), menarche and spermarche and the secondary sex characteristics; formal operational thought and, with it, the adolescent egocentrism that David Elkind described as the imaginary audience (feeling constantly watched) and the personal fable (feeling unique and invulnerable); and the search for identity, which James Marcia classified into four statuses: identity diffusion, foreclosure (commitment without exploration), moratorium (exploration without commitment) and achievement.
- Challenges: anaemia and undernutrition alongside rising obesity, early marriage and pregnancy, substance use, mental health problems and suicide, academic and career stress, risky sexual behaviour, violence and bullying including online, and gender norms that restrict girls.
- Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram (2014) serves adolescents of 10 to 19 through six themes (nutrition, sexual and reproductive health, non-communicable diseases, substance misuse, injuries and violence including gender-based violence, and mental health), adolescent-friendly health clinics and trained peer educators.
- Under Anaemia Mukt Bharat adolescents receive weekly iron-folic acid supplements and biannual deworming; the Scheme for Adolescent Girls supports out-of-school girls with nutrition and skills.
- Youth programmes include the National Service Scheme, Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan, the MY Bharat platform (2023) for volunteering and experiential learning, skill programmes, and the Tele-MANAS mental health helpline (14416).
3. Early and middle adulthood: characteristics, changing roles and responsibilities
Early adulthood, roughly from the late teens or twenties to about 40, is the period of peak physical capacity, of establishing a career, choosing a partner and often becoming a parent, and of what Erikson called the crisis of intimacy versus isolation. Jeffrey Arnett (2000) proposed "emerging adulthood", from about 18 to the mid-twenties, as a distinct stage of exploration, instability and self-focus in societies where education is long and marriage late. Middle adulthood, from about 40 to 60 or 65, brings gradual physical change (presbyopia, weight gain, menopause in women, usually between about 45 and 55, with the climacteric), the peak of career and earnings for many, and Erikson's generativity versus stagnation, the concern to guide the next generation. Daniel Levinson described the "seasons" of adult life with transitions at about 30 and at midlife; Robert Havighurst set out the developmental tasks of each stage.
| Changing role | What it involves today |
|---|---|
| Partner and spouse | Marital adjustment, shared decision making, more egalitarian expectations |
| Parent | Rearing children, often in nuclear households with less kin support |
| Worker | Dual-earner households, work-family conflict, job insecurity, career change |
| Adult child and caregiver | The "sandwich generation" caring for children and ageing parents at once |
| Citizen and community member | Civic and community responsibilities, mentoring the young |
4. Ageing: physical and psychological changes and care needs
India counts people aged 60 and above as senior citizens. They were 8.6 per cent of the population at the 2011 Census, about 104 million, and the India Ageing Report 2023 projects that about one in five Indians will be over 60 by 2050. Physical changes include declining vision (presbyopia, cataract) and hearing (presbycusis), loss of muscle (sarcopenia) and bone (osteoporosis), joint problems, slower reaction time, lower basal metabolism, reduced thirst and appetite, and a rising burden of chronic disease such as hypertension, diabetes and heart disease. Psychologically, fluid intelligence (speed and novel problem solving) declines while crystallised intelligence (knowledge and vocabulary) is maintained; working and episodic memory decline more than semantic and procedural memory; and loneliness, bereavement, loss of roles on retirement, depression and dementia (most often Alzheimer's disease) are the major risks.
| Theory of ageing | Claim |
|---|---|
| Wear-and-tear; free radical; programmed (Hayflick limit) | Biological theories: cumulative damage to cells, oxidative damage, and a limit to the number of times normal cells divide |
| Disengagement theory (Cumming and Henry, 1961) | Older people and society withdraw from each other, and this is natural and mutual |
| Activity theory (associated with Havighurst) | Staying active and replacing lost roles leads to satisfaction |
| Continuity theory (Atchley) | People adapt best by maintaining earlier patterns, habits and relationships |
| Socioemotional selectivity theory (Carstensen) | As time horizons shrink, people narrow their social circle to emotionally meaningful relationships |
Care needs span health (regular check-ups, management of chronic disease, geriatric and palliative care), nutrition, income security, safe and accessible housing, social participation, protection from neglect and abuse, and support for family caregivers, who carry most of the care in India. The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act 2007 obliges children and relatives to maintain senior citizens, through tribunals that can order maintenance of up to 10,000 rupees a month; the National Policy on Older Persons (1999) and the National Programme for Health Care of the Elderly (2010) frame services; old-age pensions are paid under the National Social Assistance Programme; the Elderline helpline (14567) offers information and support; and since October 2024 health cover under Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY extends to all citizens aged 70 and above, whatever their income.
5. Research methods VII: types of variables and their selection
A variable is a characteristic that takes different values across people, objects or time (age, haemoglobin level, dietary diversity, parenting style); a constant does not vary within the study. Choosing and defining variables comes after the hypothesis (chapter 10) and before the tools that measure them (chapter 14). Each variable needs an operational definition that says exactly how it will be measured: "nutritional status" might be operationalised as BMI-for-age z-score, "dietary diversity" as the number of food groups eaten in the previous 24 hours.
| Type of variable | Meaning | Example in a study of a nutrition education programme |
|---|---|---|
| Independent | The presumed cause, manipulated or selected by the researcher | Receiving the programme or not |
| Dependent | The presumed effect, measured as the outcome | Children's dietary diversity score |
| Intervening (mediating) | Carries the effect from independent to dependent variable | Mothers' nutrition knowledge |
| Moderator | Changes the strength or direction of the relationship | Household income, if the programme works better in poorer homes |
| Extraneous and confounding | Other influences on the outcome; a confounder is linked to both the independent and dependent variables and can create a false association | A simultaneous food price rise; mothers' education if educated mothers were more likely to enrol |
| Control | An extraneous variable held constant or adjusted for | Child's age, restricted to 2 to 5 years |
- By measurement, variables are qualitative or categorical (nominal or ordinal: sex, caste, socio-economic class), including dichotomous ones with two values, and quantitative (interval or ratio), which may be continuous (height, weight) or discrete (number of children).
- Active variables can be manipulated (a diet, a training method); attribute or organismic variables cannot (age, sex, birth order) and can only be selected.
- Selection criteria: variables should follow from theory and earlier research, be relevant to the objectives, be measurable reliably and validly, be feasible within time and budget, and be few enough to analyse meaningfully. Extraneous variables are controlled by randomisation, matching, holding them constant, building them into the design as factors, or statistical adjustment (analysis of covariance, regression).
Key takeaways
- Since 2016 child labour below 14 is prohibited in all work except narrow family and audio-visual exceptions, and hazardous work is barred for adolescents of 14 to 18.
- The JJ Act 2015 separates children in need of care and protection (Child Welfare Committees) from children in conflict with law (Juvenile Justice Boards); POCSO 2012 protects everyone under 18 and makes reporting mandatory.
- Adolescence (10 to 19) brings the growth spurt, Elkind's imaginary audience and personal fable, and Marcia's identity statuses; RKSK (2014) addresses six health themes.
- Adulthood moves through intimacy and generativity with changing roles; ageing brings sensory, musculoskeletal and cognitive change, explained by disengagement, activity, continuity and selectivity theories, with the 2007 Maintenance Act and PM-JAY cover for all over 70.
- Variables are independent, dependent, mediating, moderating, extraneous, confounding and control; each needs an operational definition, and extraneous variables are controlled by design or statistics.
Practice questions (10)
Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.
Under the Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act as amended in 2016, a 15-year-old may:
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Answer: B — Work in a non-hazardous occupation, but not in a hazardous one
The Act treats 14 to 18-year-olds as adolescents, who are barred only from hazardous occupations and processes. The complete prohibition applies to children below 14, and the circus is specifically excluded from the audio-visual exception.Which statements about the POCSO Act 2012 are correct? Select all that apply.
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Answer: A — Failure to report a known offence is itself an offence; B — It is gender-neutral as to the child; D — It protects every person below 18 years
POCSO covers all children below 18 regardless of gender, and it makes reporting mandatory, penalising failure to report. The idea that it covers only girls below 16 is wrong on both age and gender.Under the Juvenile Justice Act 2015, an abandoned infant found at a railway station is placed before the:
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Answer: C — Child Welfare Committee
An abandoned child is a child in need of care and protection, whose case goes to the Child Welfare Committee. The Juvenile Justice Board deals with children in conflict with law.A teenager refuses to go to school because she is convinced everyone will stare at a small pimple on her chin. Elkind would call this:
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Answer: A — The imaginary audience
Believing that one is the constant focus of others' attention is the imaginary audience. The personal fable is the belief that one is unique and invulnerable; foreclosure is a Marcia identity status; object permanence belongs to infancy.Assertion (A): Crystallised intelligence usually declines sharply from the age of 60. Reason (R): Fluid intelligence, involving speed and novel problem solving, declines with age. Choose the correct option.
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Answer: D — A is false, but R is true
A is false and R is true. Crystallised intelligence, accumulated knowledge and vocabulary, is largely maintained into old age and can even grow; it is fluid intelligence that declines with age, as R states.Which theories of ageing are psychosocial rather than biological? Select all that apply.
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Answer: C — Activity theory; D — Disengagement theory
Disengagement and activity theories explain how older people relate to social roles, as continuity and socioemotional selectivity theories also do. Wear-and-tear and free radical theories are biological, attributing ageing to cumulative damage to cells and tissues.In a study of whether a crèche improves mothers' employment, the mothers' employment status is the:
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Answer: D — Dependent variable
Employment is the outcome the study measures, so it is the dependent variable; access to the crèche is the independent variable. A moderator would change the strength of the relationship, and a control variable would be held constant.A nutrition education programme improves children's diets only by first raising mothers' knowledge. Mothers' knowledge is best described as a:
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Answer: C — Mediating (intervening) variable
Knowledge lies on the causal path from programme to diet, so it mediates the effect. A moderator would change the strength of the effect without being part of the path, a confounder would distort the association from outside, and an attribute variable is a fixed characteristic such as age.In India, from what age is a person counted as a senior citizen? Type the number of years.
Numerical answer — type the value.
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Answer: 60
Indian policy, including the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act 2007 and the National Policy on Older Persons, counts people aged 60 and above as senior citizens.A researcher wants to control for the child's age as an extraneous variable in a feeding trial. Which techniques would do this? Select all that apply.
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Answer: B — Matching treatment and control children by age; C — Adjusting for age statistically with analysis of covariance; D — Restricting the sample to children of 2 to 3 years
Holding age constant by restriction, matching groups on it and adjusting for it statistically all control an extraneous variable. That age is an attribute variable that cannot be manipulated is exactly why it must be controlled in these other ways, not ignored.