India: unlocking the demographic dividend

During the past few years, a number of studies have made very optimistic projections about India's demographic dividend. Demographic factors have appeared in discussion as it is important to reap benefits of demographic dividend for sustainable growth in India. India has witnessed a rapid decline in fertility that will lead to high per capita income, asset accumulation and acceleration in growth. However, recent employment figures reflect that the absorption of the Indian youth in the labour force is not as high as it was expected. This is perhaps due to the high level of illiteracy, lack of vocational training and inadequate access to quality education. India needs to improve its health care facilities, vocational training, dependency ratio, drop-out rate & shortage of teachers in order to take advantages of India's demographic dividend.