Guys, could everybody please stop digressing? Let's stick to the topic.
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The article touts too much about Indian demographic advantages.
In fact,
Indian demography may well be the obstacle to India’s further development.
According to UN data,
UNICEF - India - Statistics from 2003-2007, Indian youth (age 15-24) has a literacy rate of 82% ((87+77)/2). This group of people is very important. As in next 20-30 years, they will be the corner stone of labor market and are the indicator of potential future of the country. Yet, they will have about 20% of illiteracy.
Vast illiterate with young age is actually an evil force of destabilization to the society:
they are often unemployed, but full of energy and easy to commit crime to contribute to the economy negatively. Unlike in an authoritarian country where people are relatively controlled, in a democratic country, it is worse as rampant media can easily mislead them into being extremists or other kinds of criminals. Moreover, India’s democracy is infamously rambunctious.
In addition, India is notorious in lacking of fund for agricultural irrigation build and improvement. Food may be a problem to feed the vast mass. Bear in mind that malnutrition and hunger have dealt a devastating impact on India’s population today, rendering many of the people unable to contribute to the economy, but becoming the burden of the country.
In contrast, from the same set of data, Chinese youth has 99% literacy and the country is moving cautiously towards a rational democracy with sound demographic base. In addition, China’s manufacture is moving towards higher-end where brain capability such as knowledge and experiences are more important than physical capability. A living example is that Japan is a much-aged society than China, but with a much better economy.
Thus,
it is wrong or not quite right to use demography to predict that India’s future economy will be better than China’s.