Demography is both a threat and an opportunity, if balanced it will give out its dividend or otherwise it will turn out to be a ticking bomb,”
said Prof Jayati Ghosh, Member of National Knowledge Commission & Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi at Panjab University (PU) here on Saturday. Winner of various prestigious awards like IlO Decent Work Research Prize, NordSud Prize for Research in Social Sciences, Fondazione Pescarabruzzo and UNDP Award for Excellence in Analysis, Prof Ghosh was addressing the Public lecture of 79th Annual meeting of Indian Academy of Sciences on ‘Demographic Dividend or Ticking Time Bomb’.
Prof Ghosh said that there had been much anticipatory celebration of India’s demographic dividend about the advantage to be reaped by the fact that India’s population is predominantly young as the ratio of working age persons to population will rise. Referring to the demographic indicators, she said that in 2020, the average Indian would be only 29 years old, which would be much younger to 37 years in China and the USA, 4 in Europe and 48 in Japan.
This is assumed to deliver large and growing labour force, falling dependency ratio, no labour shortages and growing youth workforce, which can be trained to acquire the skills required by the newer and technologically more dynamic industry, she added.