India to Be the Youngest Nation in the World By 2020

Bangalore: Today every third person in Indian cities is a youth. By 2020, the median individual in the country will be 29 years, most probably a city-dweller, making India the youngest country in the world, reported Girija Shivakumar for The Hindu.

A report ‘State of the Urban Youth, India 2012: Employment, Livelihoods, Skills’ published by IRIS Knowledge Foundation in collaboration with UN-HABITAT outlined that the population in the age-group of 15-34 increased from 353 million in 2001 to 430 million in 2011. Existing predictions indicate a steady increase in the youth population to 464 million by 2021 and lastly a decline to 458 million by 2026.

It is noted that by 2020, India is set to become the world’s youngest country with 64 percent of its population in the working age group. This demographic potential gives India and its growing economy an edge over the aging West, as well as Japan and China. Economists think this could add a significant 2 percent to India’s GDP growth rate.

However, the report also suggested that urban spaces have not necessarily helped the quality of life enjoyed by Indian youth. The report said that while income levels in cities appear to be higher, the cost of living is also continually increasing, leading to shrinking savings, insufficient access to health care and lack of quality education.

On first seeing the heading, it makes you to want to be proud of India.

But on delving deeper in to the reason, you realize it is a shame.

Why is our population becoming younger?

It is because of the poor health facilities available in India.

We cannot look after our elderly population who die prematurely.

We keep breeding like rabbits with the result our population is increasing by leaps and bounds.

At one time in the 60's, India's population was around 400 million and China's population was around 600 million.

Now after 50 years we have almost caught of up to China's population.

China's population in 2012 is 1,343,239,923 and India's is 1,205,073,612, i.e just a difference of 14 million.

By 2025, we should catch up to China at least in population if nothing else.

China has introduced the one child norm but we, because of the excesses committed by the Congress during the Emergency are afraid to even broach the subject.