Increased productivity and citizens’ participation in the workforce will boost India’s contribution to global growth and take it to the top in Asia’s “third great wave” of economic growth, Deloitte has said in a report. The first wave was led by Japan in the 1990s, and the second by China peaked at the beginning of this decade, the report titled “Ageing Tigers, Hidden Dragons” said.
The next 50 years will be “an Indian summer that redraws the face of global economic power”, it said. It highlighted that Japan is now suffering from large budget deficits and an ageing population, while the impact of China’s one-child policy means that soon, fewer people will be of an age at which they can work.
However, Deloitte stressed that India will need “the right institutional set-up” to promote and sustain its growth, and that “getting richer” is not guaranteed. Without that institutional set-up, the rising population could result in unemployment and social unrest, the report warned.
India’s potential workforce will rise to 1.08 billion people in two decades, from 885 million today. The new workers will be “much better trained and educated than the existing Indian workforce”, the article said. This, it added, will boost economic potential, aided by more women joining the workforce and better skills and interest in working for longer.
The report also said that in the coming decade, India’s working age population will rise by 115 million – over half of the 225 million expected across Asia. In the same period, Japan and China will lose over 5 million and 21 million people from their working age populations. The trend will continue even in the decade after that.
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