Realising demographic dividend

(Mains GS2 : Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.)

Context:

• Recently, the United Nations’ World Population Prospects (WPP), 2022, forecasts India becoming the most populous country by 2023, surpassing China, with a 140 crore population.

Changing demographic structure:

• In its 75-year journey since Independence, the country has seen a sea change in its demographic structure.
• As per the latest WPP, India will reach 150 crore by 2030 and 166 crore by 2050.
•  India is at the third stage of the demographic transition, and experiencing a slowing growth rate due to constant low mortality and rapidly declining fertility, India has 17.5% of the world’s population. 
• However, there is a long way to go for India to achieve stability in population which is expected to be achieved no later than 2064 and is projected to be at 170 crore (as mentioned in WPP 2022).

Significant milestone:

• As per the National Family Health Survey, India reached a significant demographic milestone as, for the first time, its total fertility rate (TFR) slipped to two, below the replacement level fertility (2.1 children per woman).
• However, even after reaching the replacement level of fertility, the population will continue to grow for three to four decades owing to the population momentum (large cohorts of women in their reproductive age groups). 
• States having high TFR suffer with high illiteracy levels, rampant child marriage, high levels of under-five mortality rates, a low workforce participation of women, and low contraceptive usage compared to other States.

Large fork force:

• In the last seven decades, the share of the working age population in India has grown from 50% to 65%, resulting in a remarkable decline in the dependency ratio (number of children and elderly persons per working age population).
• As in the WPP 2022, India will have one of the largest workforces globally, i.e., in the next 25 years, one in five working-age group persons will be living in India.
• This working-age bulge will keep growing till the mid-2050s, and India must make use of it.

Bottlenecks in demographic dividend:

• There are several obstacles to harnessing the demographic dividend which India has today.
• India’s labour force is constrained by the absence of women from the workforce; only a fourth of women are employed.
• The quality of educational attainments is not up to the mark, and the country’s workforce badly lacks the basic skills required for the modernised job market.
• Having the largest population with one of the world’s lowest employment rates is another enormous hurdle in reaping the ‘demographic dividend’.

Gender gap:

• Independent India facing the male-dominant sex ratio as in 1951, the country had a sex ratio of 946 females per 1,000 males.
• After aggressively withstanding the hurdles that stopped the betterment of sex ratios such as a preference for sons and sex-selective abortions, the nation, for the first time, began witnessing a slightly improving sex ratio from 1981.
• In 2011, the sex ratio was 943 females per 1,000 males; by 2022, it is expected to be approximately 950 females per 1,000 males.

Improved life expectancy:

• Life expectancy at birth saw a remarkable recovery graph from 32 years in 1947 to 70 years in 2019.
• Several mortality indicators have improved in the last seven decades. The infant mortality rate declined from 133 in 1951 (for the big States) to 27 in 2020. The under-five mortality rate fell from 250 to 41, and the maternal mortality ratio dropped from 2,000 in the 1940s to 103 in 2019.
• However, India stands 101 out of 116 nations in the Global Hunger Index; this is pretty daunting for a country which has one of the most extensive welfare programmes for food security through the Public Distribution System and the Midday Meals Scheme.

Change in health pattern:

• The disease pattern in the country has seen a tremendous shift in these 75 years as while India was fighting communicable diseases post-Independence, there has been a transition towards non-communicable diseases (NCDs), the cause of more than 62% of total deaths.
• India is a global disease burden leader as the share of NCDs has almost doubled since the 1990s, which is the primary reason for worry. India is home to over eight crore people with diabetes.
• Further, more than a quarter of global deaths due to air pollution occur in India alone and with an increasingly ageing population in the grip of rising NCDs, India faces a serious health risk in the decades ahead.
• In contrast, India’s health-care infrastructure is highly inadequate and inefficient with low public health financing, varying between 1% and 1.5% of GDP, which is among the lowest percentages in the world.

Conclusion:

• The focus of action needs to shift from population control to augmentation of the quality of life by extensive investment in human capital, on older adults living with dignity, and on healthy population ageing. 
• Country should be now prepared with suitable infrastructure, conducive social welfare schemes and massive investment in quality education and health.