Demographic Disaster and Rising Dependent Youth
Sanjay Roy
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ACCORDING to official sources, India’s unemployment rate in the past five years turned out to be one of the highest in the post-independence period. For decades before the current regime the average open unemployment rate used to be within the range of 2-3 per cent. In developing countries where labour resources are mostly unused, people can hardly afford to wait and remain unemployed in absence of unemployment supports and tend to accept low wages and poor working conditions as they have no alternative source of earnings. In such a scenario when average unemployment rate for the past five years reaches 4.7 per cent and for the young people of age group 14-29 records an average unemployment rate as high as 14.23 per cent, it simply reflects dearth of jobs available for the working population.
On the eve of elections in 2014 prime minister Modi promised to provide two crore jobs every year and if that happened then in the past ten years surely our employment numbers would have increased by 20 crores. But the actual figures are strikingly surprising. According to the annual figures provided by the Centre of Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) our total number of employed persons declined from 41.3 crores in 2016-17 to 40.6 crores in 2022-23. This means a fall in the employment numbers in the past five years by 70.3 lakhs in which 50.2 lakhs is in urban India and 20.1 lakhs in rural India.
HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT
Employment is the only mode of engagement by which individual’s contribution to the social product is recognised in capitalism. The payment received as wages and salary against the labour power sold and found to be useful for others also legitimises the claim of the individual from the society. Undoubtedly there would be a section of the population such as kids, elderly and disabled who would not be able to contribute to the society rather the society should keep aside a part of the social product for the sustenance of the dependent population. The working age population is the share of population between 15-59 years of age and the rest may be considered as the dependent population. The share of working age population in India is currently 64 per cent and the average age of population is 28.4 years. This indicates that India currently is passing through the demographic phase when the share of young people is relatively higher and therefore ideally the share of dependent population is lower. By demographic characteristics this advantageous phase is going to continue for about another one and half decade and with huge young population this is the period when growth can be enhanced by using available youth labour force. However, the dismal picture of high unemployment rate among the youth suggests that despite having demographic advantage young people are also becoming part of the dependent population.
According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey conducted by the NSSO, the average unemployment rate in rural India for the past five years was 4 per cent while in urban India it was higher at 7 per cent. But if we consider the youth population within the age group of 15-29, unemployment rate in the past five years was 12.5 per cent in rural India and 18.7 per cent in urban India. For urban females within this age bracket, unemployment rate was as high as 24.3 per cent. CMIE also provides figures for the age group between 20-24 years and for this group the average unemployment rate for the past five years stood at an average of 34 per cent. These figures basically indicate that instead of realising the demographic dividend, India is heading towards a demographic disaster. In fact, a vast section of young population is becoming dependent on their parents and families and the country is not able to use this huge skilled and unskilled labour force effectively. CMIE also provides monthly figures of employment and unemployment and the average unemployment rate for the period January 2023 to January 2024 was 8.1 per cent; among males it is 7.1 per cent and for females the unemployment rate is 15 per cent. Unemployment rate among educated youth has been much higher than the average, indicating that the activity levels are very much skewed in favour of low skilled jobs. Those who attained graduation and above recorded average unemployment rate of 16 per cent in the past five years and for the diploma holders and those having technical certificates, average unemployment rate turns out to be 14.2 per cent.Therefore, having a youth bulge together with high rates of unemployment among the youth for the past decade is a real concern which needs to be debated and discussed during the eve of the parliament elections.
DIVISIVE STRATEGIES
Inequality in income has reached unprecedented levels in India when the richest 10 per cent earn 20 times of what the 50 per cent of Indians earn. This top 10 per cent account for 57 per cent of our national income while the bottom 50 per cent account for only 13 per cent of national income. With this very high inequality and rising unemployment particularly among the youth, political management of discontent assumes immense importance. In the current regime this has been done through three major ways: silencing the voice of dissent and dismantling institutions and spaces of debate and opposition, by offering consumption subsidies which enables maintaining a very low subsistence to a section of the poor and by constructing divisive identities that displace the genuine concerns of people and create enemies within the poor and the underprivileged.
The prime minister proudly claims credit of providing food to 80 crore Indians as part of the food security programme. This is not at all a matter of pride to be celebrated rather it implies that after 75 years of independence, 80 per cent of India’s population do not earn enough to feed themselves two square meals without government aid. There is no doubt that any kind of transfer from government exchequer going to the poor is far more welcome than tax subsidies and exemptions offered to the corporates but they are in any case not a substitute for jobs that enable people to earn and live a respectful life.
Employment is not only a means of earning but also it provides legitimacy to claims against individual’s contribution to society. On the other hand transfers are seen as favours offered by respective governments hence the expectations are also restricted to bare minimum subsistence. Therefore, aspirations of the youth are punctured by joblessness and the anger is partly neutralised by ensuring a State subsidised bare minimum consumption and intoxication of religious vengeance. India has only a decade and a half left to realise demographic dividend and let’s not waste this opportunity by electing those whose imagination of Viksit Bharat resonates celebrating religious obscurantism and animosity against fellow Indians and a denial of all our glory of secular democratic tradition achieved through freedom struggle and post-independence nation building.
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