The buzz word these days in chambers across the knowledge-hungry societies is the so called "Demographic Dividend" which will favour India in the near and medium term. The term "Demographic Dividend" essentially means that the percentage of working class people is high among the total population such that it favours an accelerated economic growth. This perhaps is seen to be a new dimension to India's oldest resource namely the "Human Resource". Population density and its growth was perceived to be India's biggest bane until a few years ago. Thanks to huge boom in services sector and economy as a whole in the last decade or so, people began to talk about the huge potential in India's large population. Add to this, today India is one of the youngest nations in the world.
This is an unique and favourable transitive stage in a country's demographic make-up which comes once in many decades, maybe once in a century. This essentially means less dependants(read "retired senior citizens and children below 15 years) and more people in the working age between 20-45. This is due to falling fertility rates(the average number of children born to a woman) in India from about 4.8-5.3 in the 70's to about 2.3 today.
So, people spend less on child care as there are less number of children and simultaneously the average wages and savings becomes higher. This leads to higher spending for a safer lifestyle and the growth of children in healthy environment.Parents are under less strain to provide for many children.The government can then concentrate purely on economic growth rather than wasting money in subsidies and low quality education. Eventually, the population growth rate also stabilises and signs of those happening in India could be seen as early as 2030.
The other side of this story could actually act as counter to economic growth. If, the government doesnot fuel growth now and create jobs for many young people who come out from their education every year, then we cannot effectively take advantage of this demographic dividend. The second point is as economy grows, healthy lifestyle will also grow and so the average life-expectancy(average number of years a man could live) will also increase. This leads to an increase in retired dependants who may not have a role to play in economic growth of a country.Another dreaded scenario is that the educated umemployed youth turning to evil ways like terrorism and domestic violence.
So, if we donot take stock of the situation and strive for producing enough oppurtunities for producing skilled youth labour and jobs for them, the old evil of high population will come back to haunt us once again. At a time when many countries like America, UK and Europe are going through a downturn and has a huge dependant population in their ranks, this is probably the best oppurtunity for India to spread its wings and fly high. The next decade will be very crucial and determine how well India has leveraged its demographic dividend. This will go a long way in shaping India's quest for becoming a worthy super power and sustain itself in the world's economic map.
