Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

India’s falling birth rate isn’t only a welfare problem, it’s also a growth problem

Rather than defining the working-age population as 15-60, surveys show that people are willing to work through their 60s because of longer lifespans and a desire to find purpose.

For over 20 years, India has touted its demographic dividend as its secret weapon for long-term sustained growth. The premise was straightforward: a young population could help the economy grow, take up jobs in different sectors as the country liberalised its economy and integrated with global markets. The jury is still out on whether India has effectively mobilised its youth dividend, but as a recent report in The Economist highlights, India’s youth boom may be coming to an end sooner than expected. And in some parts of the country, that reality is already here. 

India made significant progress in family planning and liberalising access to contraceptives to ensure its population growth slowed down. But in the span of one generation, rather than having a massive base at the bottom of a narrow age pyramid, the country is likely to have a more dispersed population across various age groups, with a rising number of middle-aged and elderly people. 

India’s old-age dependency ratio, those aged 60 and above for every 100 of working-age individuals, stood at around 16 in 2021 and is projected to reach 30 by 2050, as the over-60 population more than doubles from roughly 149 million to 347 million. The working-age share of the population, having climbed for a generation, is expected to peak somewhere between 2035 and 2045, before it begins to contract. India’s youth dividend has an expiry date, and it is coming sooner than anticipated. 

The falling birth rate is........

© ThePrint