Creating Jobs for the Young: Examining the Challenge for India
Dr Jayan Jose Thomas began with an examination of the demographic dividend wherein the working age population is increasing in India while it is decreasing in China and elsewhere. The dividend makes India a key player in today’s world economy. Foreign investors are more interested in the Indian market as the it promises additional labour supply. The challenge for policymakers therefore lies in creating employment opportunities.
Dr Jose invoked the predictions of the economist Arthur Lewis, that a surplus in labour results in the economy moving away from agriculture. He identified push factors for such a decline viz. slow growth of the agriculture sector and decreasing public investment in irrigation and research. The pull factors are the increase in the number of students and the enforcement of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
The speaker discussed the contradictions in the National Sample Surveys and the Census. He traces them to the difficulty in categorisation between agriculture and migration. The speaker further showed the demographics of employment in different categories, identified gender discrimination and the discouraging effects on students.
In laying out a road map for the future, he said that public investments in productive sectors should increase and more focus is needed on wage-led economic growth.
About the Speaker –
Jayan Jose Thomas is Associate Professor of Economics at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, where he has been employed since July 2010. Currently, he is also a member of the State Planning Board, Government of Kerala. His previous academic positions were at the National University of Singapore, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, Madras School of Economics, and Central University of Kerala. He received his B. Tech. in Industrial Engineering from Kerala University and Ph.D. in Development Economics from the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai. Jayan’s research has dealt with various aspects of Indian development, especially issues related to labour, industrialization and the macroeconomics. His recent research papers have appeared in reputed journals including World Development and Development and Change, Economic and Political Weekly and in edited volumes published by Oxford University Press and Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. He was awarded the ‘Young Labour Economist Award’ of the Indian Society of Labour Economics in 2003.
-By Akshay Patil
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