India entered the demographic dividend opportunity window in 2005-06 and will remain there till 2055-56, longest for any country. This is the period when the working age population ratio is equal to or more than 150% and the dependency ratio is equal to or lower than 66.7%, generally taken as the cut-off for the demographic dividend window. 

As per CII report published in Apr, 2022, in 2020, there were about 900 million people (67% of total population) in the working age group of 15-64 in India, which is expected to expand by another 100 million by 2030. This implies that a whopping 24.3% of the incremental global workforce over the next decade will come from India. This is a one-time opportunity for our Nation and could be “Amrit Kaal” in the journey of our Nation’s Development. 

Some of the challenges to the Demographic Dividend of India include asymmetry in demographics, India’s informal nature of economy, low labour force participation (LFP) rate in India for the working-age population (with women & PWD just being 22% & 23.8% respectively), lack of relevant skills and jobless growth in the future.

Other major challenge is youth taking up menial/low end jobs with no vertical mobility, in manufacturing and services sector.

At Funfirst, we are working on these challenges by transforming the lives of youth and vocational training landscape of our nation. This is being done through our India centric, frugal, high impact innovations supporting formalisation, enhanced LFP rate (with focus on Women & PWD), relevant skill training and quality jobs thereby helping our nation in leveraging our demographic dividend opportunity.