Seven Decades of Independent India by Vinod Rai & Dr Amitendu Palit

Author:Vinod Rai & Dr Amitendu Palit
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789353050139
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
Published: 2018-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

As a lower-middle-income country still grappling with the challenge of lifting a substantial part of its population from poverty, inability to create jobs and the consequent lack of sufficient livelihood opportunities can aggravate poverty, more so since India’s population continues to increase. With India fast catching up with China as the world’s most populous country,3 the ominous possibility of more and more young people entering the workforce to find themselves jobless is indeed real. Rising unemployment, apart from impacting poverty, will increase social tensions and unrest. This is evident from the increasing number of communities demanding reservations in public sector employment such as the Jats in Haryana and the Patels in Gujarat.

The problem of low growth in jobs is compounded by the loss of jobs to automation. This heavily complicates long-term employment policymaking in an economy aiming to capitalize the demographic dividend of a large young population. The demographic dividend from a steady supply of young labour to various sectors of the economy, who, in turn, would save, consume both wage and non-wage goods, and invest productively in sustaining various sectors—thereby creating virtuous forces of economic growth on both supply and demand sides—would remain unrealized if the jobs deficit constrains youth employment. Greater absorption of young people by the economy would increase consumption of both wage and non-wage goods and also increase savings and investment. But if the jobs deficit does not allow such absorption, then the demographic dividend would remain unrealized. This would imply failure of labour-intensive industrialization in a labour-surplus emerging market economy creating obstacles for national economic aspirations and development plans. The dual challenge of reversing lower job growth and preventing job losses emerges as probably the most significant public policy imperative in modern India. The grimness of the situation becomes more stark given the fact that jobs need to be ‘productive’ and ‘decent’ by ensuring they fulfil individual and national aspirations.

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