Mumbai: Much has been talked on India’s democratic dividend. In the next 35 years India is going to dominate the world’s working age population as per UNDP’s recent released report on Regional Human Development Report on Asia-Pacific. However, the creation of job opportunities is limited in India to absorb the new additional working age population, the report mentioned.

Asia-Pacific’s working-age population, comprising 58 percent of the global total, continues to grow. China and India comprised 62 percent of the region’s share in 2015, with 1 billion and 0.86 billion workers, respectively. But China’s share of working-age people is now falling, while India’s continues to rise, expected to touch a maximum of about 1.1 billion in 2050. The region as a whole will reach its maximum number of working-age people, at 3.1 billion, in 2045.

By 2050, more than 280 million more people will enter the job market in India alone, for instance, a one-third increase above current levels, yet between 1991 and 2013, the economy absorbed less than half of new entrants to the labour market. In China, the number of jobs grew from 628 million to 772 million between 1991 and 2013, an increase of 144 million, but the working-age population increased by 241 million. In India, the size of the working-age population increased by 300 million during the same time, while the number of employed people increased by only 140 million—the economy absorbed less than half the new entrants into the labour market.

A wider gap in India than China suggests a more limited capacity to generate employment—a serious challenge given the continued expansion of the workforce in India over the next 35 years. Creation of jobs is the need of hour.