The year 2024 marks an important demographic milestone in the world, as the absolute size of the working age (20-64) population of the relatively rich countries (the 38-country OECD, or Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, club) begins to shrink. In the next 25 years, projections are that it will fall by tens of millions, from its current level of around 800 million people. Correspondingly, the share of the aged (65-plus) in those countries is set to grow from 18% to 27% by 2050. How do these factoids on external demographic transitions concern India’s development journey over the next 25 years?
First, while India’s population will continue to grow, all discussions on population growth in India hereon will be centred on how slowly that will happen. To be sure, annual population growth rates peaked in the 1980s itself and have been on a downward trend since. But hereon, it will pinch, since several regions will begin to experience a decline in population. Some wards in Kolkata are already facing it due to extremely low fertility coupled with high net out-migration.
Since 1921, virtually no district of India faced this ‘depopulation’ in any decennial census, but the number of such districts will begin to rise steadily by 2050. Depopulation pressures will slowly bring in closure of schools and maternity wards and the opening of old-age homes.
Second, as the India Ageing Report 2023 published by the United Nations Population Fund and the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) shows, the share of those aged 60-plus in the population is set to rise from around 10% today to a little over 20% in 2050, or close to 350 million in absolute terms. That is, there will be as many old people in India in 2050 as there are people today in the US, with obvious implications on the sustainability of pension schemes that are hotly debated today.
Third, these broad contours of the coming demographic transition vary hugely within India. Consider two states at either end of the income spectrum: Kerala at the upper end and Bihar at the lower end. By 2050, the share of the aged in Kerala’s population will be above 25% whereas in Bihar it would still be under 15%. Kerala’s median age would be closer to 45 whereas Bihar’s would be closer to 30. Currently, both states face high out-migration. By 2050, Kerala would almost certainly be a state with high net in-migration. With a high median age, its demographic pressure to emigrate would have slowed down (as the Kerala Migration Survey 2023 already indicates) and the demand for a young (migrant) workforce would have opened substantially. Indeed, Kerala already hosts millions of migrants from North India. In Bihar, on the other hand, expect substantial out-migration even in 2050.
Fourth, these demographic differences within India will reshape the internal migration dynamics heavily towards the ageing South from the relatively young northern hinterland. Until recently, natural population growth (the extent to which births exceed deaths) outweighed migration dynamics as the major driver of population growth at the state level. As natural growth rates crash, migration will bear a larger weight in the future.
If the delimitation exercise after 2026 is indeed carried forward, the South will be penalized in the Lok Sabha for better demographic performance (Lok Sabha seats are currently allotted as per the 1971 Census population figures, with a freeze on an updation until the first Census after 2026). But by 2050, the picture could indeed change if substantial population transfers take place through migration. That is, delimitation exercises in the later part of the 21st century would reward those states which absorb more migrants, as it did in the US over the course of the 20th century. For instance, California increased its seat share in the House of Representatives from 11 out of 435 in 1910 to 53 out of 435 in 2010, essentially on account of migration. If the next delimitation in India is kicked down the road, as it has in the past, it could well be the case that in 2050, the reorganization of the Lok Sabha does not look very drastic as migration flows of 2025-2050 cancel out to some extent natural growth effects of the past 50 years.
Demographic pressures for interstate migration, however, run against a hostile policy climate against migrants, with states passing or promising anti-constitutional nativist legislations, blaming migrants for their woes, and even raising the bogey of outsider status for migrants contesting elections. There is thus scope for an Inter-State Migration Council to be formed to protect and enforce the constitutional ideal of free interstate mobility, without which the efficiency gains of an integrated labour market would be lost.
Finally, precisely because India would be far younger than the relatively aged and demographically imploding rich world, there appears to be a huge opportunity in leveraging the gains from international migration. Bilateral mobility partnerships across the skill spectrum must be pushed forward despite the anti-immigrant rhetoric which simply won’t withstand the demographic inversion that they are undergoing. Just as Kerala benefited from its connection with the Persian Gulf countries for 50 years during its demographic transition, the other states of India that have a relatively young workforce can benefit by connecting with gaps in labour markets around the world. By 2050, South Korea, Japan and maybe even China, however unrealistic it may seem today, could well be new destinations apart from current destinations in the Persian Gulf, North America, Europe and Australia.
The next 25 years hold a lot of promise for India’s developmental trajectory. A close understanding of India’s demographic transition and labour market dynamics will be pivotal for policymakers in making the best use of the resources at hand. The newly elected political dispensation should start this journey with that most important exercise for this purpose, curiously delayed so far by three years: a national census.
Chinmay Tumbe is a faculty member at the Indian Institute of Managment, Ahmedabad, and the author of India Moving: A History of Migration.
