How to maximise the advantage of India’s young population

Three states account for one-third of India's young working-age population (aged 16-44): Uttar Pradesh (UP), Maharashtra, and Bihar. These states also account for the highest ratio of the population which will enter the working-age group in the future (currently under 10 years of age). UP accounts for 17% of India's population under the age of 10, and Maharashtra and Bihar account for 9% each. Thus, 35% of India's under-10 population comes from just three states. However, these states have been lagging behind in supporting the well-being of their young people.

On child health indicators, the ratio of children with malnutrition-related issues has been subpar, and in these three states -- some cases are even worse. The indicators are stunting, wasting, and under-nutrition. Stunting refers to when people are too short for their age; wasting refers to when people are too thin for their height. Prevalence of these indicators in a child, point towards impaired growth and development which can have adverse consequences in daily life functioning. Including but not limited to -- poor cognition and educational performance, and a risk of nutrition-related chronic diseases in adult life. This is also reflected in the failure of a child’s ability to reach his/her full potential. Currently, based on NHFS 5, national stunting ratio for children under the age of five is 35.5%. While in Bihar the stunting ratio is highest at 43%, followed by UP at 39.7%, and then Maharashtra (being close to national ratio) at 35.2%. The national wasted ratio for children under the age of five is 19.3%: Maharashtra has the highest value across major states of 25.6%, followed by Bihar at 23% and at 17.3% which is close to average. National underweight ratio for children under the age of five is 32.1%: Bihar has one of the highest ratios at 41%, Maharashtra’s ratio is 36% and UP is at average at 32%.

Arguably, UP has made significant improvements since NFHS4 was conducted; its stunting ratio has reduced by 6.6%, and ratio of children who are underweight has reduced by 7.4%. In fact, these drops in numbers are significant given that average drop across states was between 2-3%.

However, while UP is on the mend, faster improvement in its performance is most crucial given that it has the highest share of population under the 10-age group in the country - almost equivalent to Maharashtra and Bihar’s share combined. Hence, UP will have to achieve above average status in child health indicators much faster to be able to contribute to India’s competitive advantage.

In addition to their poor nutritional status, Bihar and UP also have lower-than-average gross enrolment ratios (GERs) in senior secondary and higher education institutions. Maharashtra, on the other hand, performs better than the national average in education metrics. Across India, close to 60% of the population in the senior secondary school-going age group is enrolled in senior school. However, in Uttar Pradesh, only 51% of this population is enrolled, and in Bihar, only 36% is enrolled.

A 12th pass graduation is required for most decent jobs, so 50-65% of the school-going population in these two states are missing out on the opportunity to even be eligible for such jobs. Additionally, a college or higher education degree provides better scope for job progression. While 27% of the eligible population in India is enrolled in higher education institutions, this ratio is much lower in UP at 23% and in Bihar at 16%.

For improvement in nutritional indicators, centrally funded scheme, Poshan Abhiyaan was launched in 2018. The scheme focused on nutritional status of new mothers and children under the age of 6. However, since its inception, there has been under-utilisation of the funds given to the states. In Maharashtra, while the utilisation of funds is one of the highest, it is still close to 60%, and in Bihar and UP, it is much lower at 40%-45%. Therefore, the improvement in nutritional indicators does not seem to be dependent on lack of funds with the state governments but has more to do with operational efficiencies. Finally, there is a dire need for states to re-evaluate their strategies to find the bottlenecks, and for the centre to increase focus on these three states given their below optimal performance, considering they contribute to a large part of the target population.

This article is authored by Rishita Sachdeva, research associate, Centre for Social and Economic Progress, New Delhi.