UPSC Mains 2014 GS Paper 3 Q2: model answer

India's median age is under 30, and about two-thirds of its people are of working age. Yet India Skills Reports have repeatedly found only about half of fresh graduates employable. A dividend unpaid turns into a liability: millions of frustrated young people without work.

What we are missing

• Quality of schooling: ASER surveys show many children in Class 5 cannot read a Class 2 text.
• Skills mismatch: degrees without practical training; very few workers have formal vocational training.
• Health and nutrition: stunting in childhood lowers adult productivity.
• Women: low female labour force participation halves the dividend.
• Time: the window closes as the population ages after about 2040, earlier in southern states.

Where the jobs can come from

• Labour-intensive manufacturing: textiles, footwear, food processing, electronics assembly.
• Construction and infrastructure, which absorb rural migrants.
• MSMEs, which employ over 20 crore people, with easier credit.
• Tourism, healthcare and the care economy, which cannot be automated easily.
• Agro-processing and rural non-farm work to keep jobs near villages.
• Digital and green jobs: solar installation, EV servicing, data work.
• Public services: lakhs of vacancies in schools, hospitals and police stations.

What it needs

Skill India linked to industry apprenticeships, NEP 2020's vocational stream, safe transport and hostels for women workers, and labour reforms that make formal hiring easier.

A demographic dividend is earned in classrooms and factories, not counted in a census.