Demographic dividend or deficit: insights from data on Indian labour

Using data on educational attainment and labour market aggregates, we examine if advantages reflected in age structure – enormity of youth population in India – is converted into labour market outcomes. The study is descriptive in nature, unravelling the pattern of educational attainment of youth and six labour market variables: work participation rate (WPR), labour force participation rate (LFPR), rate of unemployment, employment status, distribution of economic activity and distribution of occupation. The analysis is based on unit level data of National Sample Survey (NSS) 62nd round. We doubt the view that enormity of youth population is a key source of demographic dividend. On the other hand, the paper exposes inadequacy of educational attainment to support a large chunk of Indian youth in availing advantages of economic growth. Moreover, the magnitude of this inadequacy is relatively higher for segments of youth population including rural youth, who form the majority of youth population, women, social categories like scheduled caste and scheduled tribe.