Weekly Numerics | India’s population is ageing while its youth is finding it hard to get jobs

A weekly series from Moneycontrol

Weekly Numerics is a weekly column where we will present you with three to five charts based on major events or interesting data points that emerged during the week. Several key numbers were released in the week gone by. Here are some of the figures we found interesting.

India’s population is ageing

With the estimated decadal growth of its elderly population estimated to reach 41 percent between 2021 and 2031, India’s population is ageing rapidly, shows data.

According to a recent report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), India will have more elderly than children by 2046. The share of those above 60 in the country’s population is pegged to go up from 10.72 percent in 2023 to 18.96 percent in 2046. Meanwhile, the share of children aged below 15 in the population is expected to come down from 24.9 percent to 18.83 percent over the same period.

As can be seen from the chart above, after reaching its highest share at 63.9 percent in 2038, the population of those aged between 15 and 59 is also expected to trend downward.

However, some states are ageing faster than the others. “Most of the states in the southern region and select northern states such as Himachal Pradesh and Punjab reported a higher share of the elderly population than the national average in 2021, a gap that is expected to widen by 2036. While states reporting higher fertility rates and lagging in demographic transition, such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, expect to see an increase in the share of the elderly population between 2021 and 2036, the level will remain lower than the Indian average,” said the report.

Rising youth unemployment

While India is ageing, as discussed above, its younger population is facing a high unemployment rate. According to data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the country’s youth segment, aged between 15 and 24, are facing the double whammy of a falling labour force participation rate and rising unemployment rate.

Youth unemployment stood at 45.4 percent in 2022-23, which is six times higher than the overall unemployment rate of 7.5 percent.

A declining labour participation rate along with high unemployment rate among the youth could be an indicator of a lack of employment opportunities.

“The high unemployment rate among the youth indicates that India is unable to generate new sources of employment for the new cohorts who enter the labour markets. 42.5 per cent of the employed youth is engaged as a wage labourer or a small trader. The poor quality of employment among the youth suggests that they are possibly forced into accepting low quality jobs and that the quality of jobs in India is not merely a legacy problem,” said an analytical report by CMIE.

NSE hits 8 crore unique investors milestone

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) now has more than 8 crore registered unique investors, data released by the exchange revealed.

Meanwhile, the total number of client codes registered with the exchange crossed 14.9 crore, as investors can register with more than one trading member.

It took only seven months to reach the 8 crore mark from 7 crore. According to the NSE, as many as 45 percent of recent 1 crore investors came from beyond the top 100 cities. States from North India accounted for the largest number of new investors, followed by Western states.

According to the exchange, 8 crore unique PAN investors correspond to nearly 5 crore unique households in the country. This means that around 17 percent of households directly invest in the Indian stock market.

Growth in demand for frontline workers falter

The total number of frontline jobs created in FY23 went down by 17.5 percent in India, declining from 8o lakh during the year before to 66 lakh, according to the BetterPlace Frontline Index 2023 report.

This is largely due to global macroeconomic headwinds, said the report. Meanwhile, gig work is seen to be on the rise as more companies are ‘variabalising’ their workforce expenditure.

FY23 saw a significant drop in the number of frontline jobs created by the e-commerce sector, which was the highest contributor to frontline employment the year before. Logistics and mobility have replaced the e-commerce sector as the largest contributors of employment for frontline workers in FY23.