Introduction:
• India’s population is among the youngest in an ageing world.
• By 2022, the median age in India will be 28 years; in comparison, it will be 37 in China and the United States, 45 in Western Europe, and 49 in Japan.
• India’s working-age population has numerically outstripped its non-working age population.
• A demographic dividend, said to have commenced around 2004-05, is available for close to five decades. This is an extraordinary opportunity.

There are however, two caveats
• First, India’s population heterogeneity ensures that this window of demographic dividend becomes available at different times in different States.
o While Kerala’s population is already ageing, in Bihar the working-age cohort is predicted to continue increasing till 2051.
o By 2031, the overall size of our vast working age population would have declined in 11 of the 22 major States.
• Second, harnessing the demographic dividend will depend upon the employability of the working-age population, their health, education, vocational training and skills, besides appropriate land and labor policies, as well as good governance.
o India will gain from its demographic opportunity only if policies and programs are aligned to this demographic shift.

Demographic dividends
• Demographic dividend refers to the growth in an economy that is the result of a change in the age structure of a country's population.
• There is consensus now that among other factors, it was the demographic dividend that powered respectively the Asian economies of Japan, China, and South Korea to spectacular growth.
• More significantly, in each case, the underlying pattern was fairly similar i.e., countries will benefit from the economic potential of their youth bulge when and where they succeed in providing good health, quality education, and decent employment to their entire population.

Need for skills
• The Economic Survey 2019 calls for additional jobs to keep pace with the projected annual increases in working age population. We need a workforce that is well educated, and appropriately skilled.
• UNICEF 2019 reports that at least 47% of Indian youth are not on track to have the education and skills necessary for employment in 2030.
• The projected demographic dividend would turn into a demographic disaster if an unskilled, under-utilised, and frustrated young population undermines social harmony and economic growth.
Measures to improve quality education
• National Family Health Surveys (completed up to 2015-16) confirm that poor infrastructure in government schools, malnutrition, and scarcity of trained teachers have ensured poor learning outcomes.
• High quality education achieves gender parity and propels people forward into more productive lives.
• A coordinated incentive structure prompting States to adopt a broadly uniform public school system focusing on equity and quality will yield a knowledge society faster than privatising school education can accomplish.
• Irrespective of rural or urban setting, the public school system must ensure that every child completes high school education, and is pushed into appropriate skilling, training and vocational education in line with market demand.
• Deploying new technology will help accelerate the pace of building human capital by putting in place virtual classrooms together with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS).
o It will help prepare this huge work force for next-generation jobs.
• The Govt. should invest on open digital universities which would further help yield a higher educated workforce.

Helping women(a bird can not fly with her single wing):
• Growing female literacy is not translating into relevant and marketable skills. A comprehensive approach is needed to improve their prospects vis-à-vis gainful employment.
• Flexible entry and exit policies for women into virtual classrooms, and into modules for open digital training, and vocational education would help them access contemporary vocations.
• A mushrooming of job portals and organisations are providing employment for trained women, even from home. Equal pay for women will make it worth their while to stay longer in the workforce.
On health care
• In India, population health is caught between the rising demand for health services and competition for scarce resources.
• The National Sample Survey Office data on health (75th round, 2018), shows that a deep-rooted downturn in the rural economy is making quality health-care unaffordable.
• People are availing of private hospitals less than they used to, and are moving towards public health systems.
• That is all very well except for the fact that the central budget 2020-21 lays emphasis on private provisioning of health care which will necessarily divert public investment away from public health infrastructure.
o The Ayushman Bharat Yojana links demand to tertiary in-patient care.
o This promotes earnings of under-utilized private hospitals, instead of modernizing and up-grading public health systems in each district.
Improving Healthcare facilities
• We need to assign 70% of health sector budgets to integrate and strengthen primary and integrated public health-care services and systems up to district hospital levels, include out-patient department and diagnostic services in every health insurance model adopted.
Conclusion
• The policies that we adopt, and their effective implementation will ensure that our demographic dividend, a time-limited opportunity, becomes a boon for India.