Of the estimated 814 million citizens eligible to vote in India’s general elections that began on April 7, some 150 million are first-time voters between the ages of 18 and 23. How they vote may well determine the results, scheduled to be announced May 16. But will a new government be able to fulfill the aspirations of India’s young citizens?
India is experiencing a youth bulge. Nearly two-thirds of Indians are under 35; half are under 25. By 2020, India will be the youngest country in the world, with a median age of 29 years, compared with a median age of 37 years in China at that point. India’s large youth population, often called a “demographic dividend,” could potentially make India the biggest consumer market and the biggest labor force in the world.
India’s youth came of age in the late 1990s and early 2000s during a period of relatively high economic growth, which put a television in the majority of Indian homes and made cellphones ubiquitous. Young Indians have grown up more connected to the world — beyond their village, their caste, their co-religionists or their income level — than any previous generation. They can see on their televisions how the rest of the world — and India’s privileged classes — live.
Unfortunately, most do not have the remotest chance of acquiring the skills and education that would raise their living to those levels, even assuming enough jobs were created to employ them. India’s education system is simply not delivering: A recent report from Pratham, a nonprofit education advocacy group, found that half of India’s 7-year-olds cannot identify letters, and one in five 10-year-olds cannot read sentences. Manufacturing is not expected to generate enough jobs; a recent report indicates more people will be working in agriculture in India in 2019 than in 2012.
The new government will need to act quickly to demonstrate that it can do better than its predecessors. It will have to jump-start the faltering economy, provide access to affordable, improved education for boys and girls in all regions and help the private sector create tens, if not hundreds, of millions of decent-paying jobs. Unless it can do that, India’s youthful demographic dividend could turn into a demographic liability.
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