For decades, India's burgeoning population has been blamed by it's selfish and corrupt politicians, for dragging down the country's growth and acting as a drain on its resources. How many of us remember the rhetoric of politicians down the ages of holding high population resposible for hunger, crimes and poverty while tonnes of food was eaten away by rodents and got decomposed in government godown due to mismanaged setup.
And I always mantianed and now appears that India's high birth rate could be a boon because it will make her population much younger in the next 15-20 years - in fact, much younger than China's - and give the country an unprecedented competitive edge.
Increasingly over the years, this large population base is being viewed as a serious competitive advantage for India, with the potential of leapfrogging the country into the orbit of higher economic growth.
So what has brought about this change in perception? Chirdeep Bagga of Indiatimes reports Singapore's chief mentor Lee Kuan Yew saying earlier this month that: "One of the by-products of China's one-child policy is that in a decade or so many more people will be retiring than entering the workforce... There is no precedent for a country to grow old before it has grown rich. India - average age 26, compared to China's 33 and still with much faster population growth - will enjoy bigger demographic growth."
India's population, at present about 1.1 billion, is expected to be nearly 1.4 billion in 2025 and 1.6 billion in 2050, surpassing ...
...China around 2030. But the good news is that its population in the age group 15-64 (623 million in 2000) will see an unprecedented rise to hit 942 million in 2025 and 1060 million by 2050.
A report by Goldman Sachs predicts that India would be the only economy consistently growing in excess of 5% annually till the year 2050. It is estimated that by 2020 the US will be short of 17 million people of working age, China 10 million, Japan 9 million and Russia 6 million.
Against this, India will have a surplus of 47 million working age people. Thus India is expected to continue having a competitive advantage in labour costs, which would be sustainable up to 2050. India's growth rate is expected to exceed China's by 2010 and it'll be the third richest economy in 2050, behind China and the US.
India's youthfulness is expected to substantially increase the saving rates in the country, while also encouraging flow of capital from ageing nations which would seek investment in high-growth regions.
But experts say this huge population may prove a curse if investments in human capital are not taken up on a rapid scale. This would entail providing education and employment opportunities, besides investing heavily in infrastructure.
So, there goes the myth. What will our politicians do or say now, to "pass on the buck"?
