Aid and Employment Trends in South Asia

South Asian countries – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka – have been recognized as having the fastest recovering economies. Their economic growth was responsible for almost 7% of the annual GDP growth rate in 2014.The recent recovering growth has been mainly led by India, which overcame a long-lasting slow-down in economic growth after the new government successfully introduced political change and led global investment expansion. The other countries such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have also contributed to increased economic growth. On the other side of economic growth, it is well-known that the South Asian region suffers from serious imbalance in the labor market, with the causes including a high rate of unemployment, large share of informal sector workers and serious gender gap. This study is to understand the employment trends in South Asia in comparison to economic growth, specifically addressing how South Asian countries have recovered economically but it has barely affected the level of employment. Furthermore, major problems such as the informal sector and gender gap are thoroughly studied. Finally, this study researches the linkage between foreign aid and employment trends in South Asia and how they can be better related ways for improvement in relation to the employment generation will be researched in order to obtain policy implications