Youth in South Africa and India: is it really bulging or contracting?

Kanchan Negi, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Abhishek Saraswat, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

Youth bulge is typically characterized as swelling young population of a nation as compared to other groups. This youth bulge ensures promising chances of tapping the demographic dividend more fruitfully. Therefore, this paper attempts to estimate the proportion of youth in workforce in order to determine whether youth is bulging or contracting in South Africa and India. Results show that although the population of workforce (15-64 years) and youth (15-24 years) has increased during 1991 to 2011 but proportion of youth in workforce has declined overtime both the countries especially in India. This study concludes that youth is actually shrinking in South Africa and India. Therefore, governments need to adopt policies that will allow the utmost use of the quality and efficiency of youth before the onset of rapid population aging.