India, is one of the largest countries in the world, in several ways being the world’s largest democracy, having the 2nd largest population, the 5th largest economy, the 7th biggest country by area, and so on. But what stands out the most is that India has the youngest population in the world. As per recent statistics, India is home to a fifth of the world’s entire youth population (that means out of every 5 youth, 1 is Indian), and the average age of the Indian population is only 29 years. (Ref: https://indbiz.gov.in/one-of-the-youngest-populations-in-the-world-indias-most-valuable-asset/)
On one side, India’s young population is considered to be a valuable asset to our growth and economy. India proudly calls it our ‘Demographic Dividend’. As per the Ministry of External Affairs, ‘the overall rate of literacy among India’s youth has increased, with approximately 90 percent being able to read or write. Coupled with the prevalence of social media and internet penetration, this has created a digitally savvy population. With internet access and affordable smartphones, these young people are accessing online resources that encourage learning and acquisition of skills’
Hence, it is natural that India should be able to use this valuable asset for nation-building. But unfortunately, the picture of youth’s participation in this effort is minimal. India still suffers from large-scale youth unemployment, and hence, these young people are not able to contribute to the development of India. Amongst these unemployed, are also a large section of young men and women who are pursuing civil service preparation for years, or even studying for degrees after degrees without any promised prospects of a job or career. In fact, their over-reliance on the government sector to provide jobs has led to a waste of these young minds which could have been better applied elsewhere.
But apart from the above loss of human capital, one of the other concerns India is facing is the large-scale emigration of young and educated minds to abroad countries. As per the Economic Times article, 1.33 lakhs Indians migrated abroad for higher studies and better employment prospects just in the first three months of 2022. In the 2020 year, 2,59655 students, and in the 2021 year, 4,44553 students went abroad for higher studies. There has been an overall increase of 41% in just 1 year. (Ref: https://oidigitalinstitute.com/news/indian-students-abroad/)
In fact, according to Redseer report, around 1.8 to 2 million Indians will be studying abroad by 2024 and will be spending $85 billion on their education overseas. This shows how many of our youth are willing to migrate and even spend such a big amount of their savings/loans just to move abroad.
India has always faced this ‘brain-drain’ since its independence. In the early decades after 1947 until the 1970s, this brain drain was limited to the talented and privileged class who were either self-funded (all the prominent industrialists such as Ratan Tata, Rahul Bajaj, Baba Kalyani, Azim Premji, etc studied abroad back in those days, but they returned back to India) or had received a scholarship to study (several scientists, engineers, doctors, etc). Most of them after the study preferred to settle abroad as they had limited work opportunities back in India. But some of them did come back and became successful as per the names mentioned above.
Then, from the 1980s to the late 1990s, there was an increase in the number of Indians leaving abroad, mainly because the Indian economy suffered terribly during that time due to its decade-old license raj policy, and also the IT sector caused a boom in the western countries, which motivated young engineers to move to silicon valley. Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, and all the Indian-American CEOs we know migrated during that time. That was the best time to migrate and settle down in the US/UK and European countries as the world had opened due to the fall of the Soviet Union, the globalization era had ushered in and those countries were actually welcoming immigrants to come and work in their countries. Those who grabbed that opportunity were indeed the lucky ones!
Then, there is a third phase which started during the 2000s and 2010’s decade, somewhere between 9/11 and Covid-19. We see that during this phase the number of people migrating abroad skyrocketed. This was because of the onsite opportunities being provided by the IT companies, and the rise of doing MS/MBA due to the easy loans available from banks. Another reason is that those people who couldn’t migrate abroad during the first two phases, wanted their kids/cousins to move abroad, for all kinds of reasons, be it a good education, better salary, to run away from corruption and other policies like reservations which they saw since the 1990s. The parents gave the green signal for their kids to move abroad and hence, we see that it is hard to find any family in big cities where someone from the family is not settled in US/UK/Canada. Even geographies influenced the decision, like for example, Punjabis preferred to migrate to Canada en masse, while Andhra and Tamil students opted for the US. Gujaratis went to UK/US in large numbers, while Keralites mostly selected Arab countries (not for education, but primarily for job opportunities)
Hence, we see that this brain drain has been increasing years after years. There were a few events that slightly reduced the migration rate such as 9/11, the 2007 US recession, Trump’s 2016 win, and most recently, Covid-19. But in spite of all these events (shocks), the interest of the youth to move abroad has not declined. Apart from their parent’s support and banks willing to sponsor loans with attractive interest rates, another reason is the increasing exchange rate between US Dollar/Euros against Rupee. As of this writing, our rupee has hit the historic low of Rs.81.5 against 1 USD.
The interesting thing is in spite of incurring high education costs, the youth is willing to take risks because simply they are focussing on the conversation rate by earning in dollars. Many of them just want to go abroad for earning and sending the money back to India. This has its own repercussions, one of them being the rapid slump in the Rupee value as the demand for the dollar rises which is definitely not good for the Indian economy. Besides, NRI spending can increase inflation in our country as well, but that is not the topic of concern for this post.
And a big reason for this obsession to move abroad has been the stagnant or low salary packages in India. We all know how much a fresher will earn in India (Refer my post) and the same fresher can earn several times higher abroad with the same skillset/age, thanks to the exchange rate. Our youth wants to move abroad for not only a higher salary but also for a better lifestyle. The effects of globalization and capitalism have been deeply embedded in our society now, and that is why young people want to buy good clothes, drive fancy cars, live in luxury apartments, and to achieve that, the best possible way for a youth coming from middle-class family is to move abroad and earn in dollars.
Finally, we all are aware that it is impossible to stop the youth from migrating abroad because India doesn’t have the complete infrastructure or industry to provide jobs to all fresh graduates, especially by giving them high salary packages. But that doesn’t mean there are no solutions to this problem. One of the solutions is to develop the necessary infrastructure which would provide the foundations for the youth to start new firms/companies in India. Today, we have more than 100 unicorns and 60K+ startups. Many of the startup founders came back to India after studying/working abroad, and are now working hard to grow their companies in India, thereby employing more youth and contributing to the Indian economy.
Since 2014, the BJP government under Narendra Modi has been focused on the corruption-free system, Digital India, Make in India, and promoted the startup eco-system which has helped many of our youth to come back home or even change their minds about moving abroad for jobs. This is a good sign. But still, a lot needs to be done, and before India celebrates its 100 years of independence, let’s hope that our youth will prefer to study and work in India, and not be obsessed to move abroad as we see now.
Thank you.