[Retric]

Depends on what you mean by rich. India’s per capita income is more than 3 times what it was 30 years ago. So it can easily support significant social programs for the elderly, though not to western standards.

On top of this western productivity is linked to low birth rates enabling a larger percentage of the population to work. So low birth rates may be required for a wealthy country rather than being just the result of a wealthy country.

[tsol]

But what was the actual per capita income 30 years ago? 3 times not much is still not very much. So I don't see how is a given that they can institute suitable social programs. It's still a question whether or not that'll be the case even for first world western countries

[Retric]

India’s per capita PPP is ~6k$ USD per year, but it’s not equally distributed. Ignoring economic growth and assuming a population distribution that eventually looks like the US (16% of the population over 65) allocating say 8% of GDP to the elderly would provide a standard of living better than most of them had 20 years ago and in fact many would see an income bump at retirement.

Of course that doesn’t pay for significant medical care etc, but I also ignored economic growth. By the time India has US style age demographic breakdown things should look significantly better.