{"id":5962,"date":"2018-03-20T16:56:12","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T11:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teekhapan.wordpress.com\/?p=5962"},"modified":"2018-03-20T16:56:12","modified_gmt":"2018-03-20T11:26:12","slug":"indias-demographic-dividend-is-collapsing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/2018\/03\/20\/indias-demographic-dividend-is-collapsing\/","title":{"rendered":"India’s Demographic Dividend is Collapsing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sometimes we get accused of being a stuck like a broken record. But then how else does one follow an issue of utmost importance to a nation, without saying the same things over and over again.<\/p>\n
A few days back, The Economic Times<\/a> reported that the Indian Railways had received a record 1.5 crore applications for 90,000 vacancies. This is the highest number of applications that the Railways has ever received. These are vacancies in Group C and Group D categories, with salaries ranging from Rs 18,000 to Rs 60,000.<\/p>\n Of the 90,000 jobs, around 63,000 jobs are in the Group D category, which includes the job of a gangman. Around 26,500 jobs are in the Group C category, which includes jobs of loco pilots and assistant loco pilots.<\/p>\n The last day of the application is March 31, 2018. \u00a0\u201cThe number could cross even two crore as there\u2019s still a lot of time to file application<\/em>,\u201d a senior railway ministry official not willing to be identified told The Economic Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n Around 167 individuals are competing for one job. If the number of applicants goes up to 2 crore, then 222 individuals will compete for one job in the Indian Railways.<\/p>\n This is India\u2019s demographic dividend, competing for a government job, when barely any are going around. Nearly two million people<\/a> cross the age of 14 every month in India. Potentially, all of them can join the labour force to look for a job. But all of them don\u2019t. Some people continue to study. A bulk of the women do not look for a job. After adjusting for this, and folks leaving the workforce through retirement, nearly a million Indians join the workforce every month i.e. 1.2 crore a year, which is around half the population of Australia and two and a half times, the population of New Zealand. Of course, the Indian Railways example<\/a> cited earlier is just one example which shows the lack of jobs for the Indian youth entering the workforce every year. A random Google search will tell you that this is not an isolated example. A late January 2018<\/a> newsreport in The Times of India<\/em> points out that, engineers, law graduates and MBAs were among the 2.81 lakh people who applied for 738 peon posts in Madhya Pradesh.<\/p>\n Another newsreport which appeared in The Indian Express<\/a> in early January 2018 pointed out that at least \u201c129 engineers, 23 lawyers, a chartered accountant and 393 postgraduates in arts were among 12,453 people interviewed for 18 Class IV posts \u2014 in this case, for jobs as peons \u2014 in the Rajasthan Assembly secretariat<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Imagine, if 12,453 individuals were interviewed for 18 posts of peon, how many people would have applied in the first place?<\/p>\n Another newsreport in The Telegraph<\/a> points out that 1,000 people turned up for three data entry posts that the Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) had advertised for. As the newsreport points out: \u201cWhile the required qualification for the post was graduation with mandatory knowledge of computer, candidates with BTech, MCA and law degrees turned up for the job interview<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n These are not isolated news stories. Such stories have appeared in the media regularly over the last few years. They are the best example of the fact that there aren\u2019t enough jobs going around for India’s youth, the country\u2019s demographic dividend.<\/p>\n As the Fifth Report on Employment and Unemployment points out: \u201cThe Unemployment Rate for the persons aged 18-29 years and holding a degree in graduation and above was found to be maximum with 18.4 per cent based on the Usual Principal Status Approach at the All India level.<\/em>\u201d Also, the Usual Principal Status Approach considers anyone working for a period of 183 days or more during the course of the year, as employed. Hence, a person could be unemployed for 182 days, and still considered to be employed.<\/p>\n In fact, in a recent answer to a question raised in the Lok Sabha, the government basically pointed out that the more educated an individual is in rural India, the more difficult it is to find a job, in India. Take a look at Table 1.<\/p>\n Table 1:<\/p>\n
\nA recent estimate made by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy<\/a> suggests that in 2017, two million jobs were created for 11.5 million Indians who joined the labour force during the year.<\/p>\n