SYDNEY, Mar 10 (IPS) – Talking on the current annual convention of the Bangladesh Administrative Service Affiliation, Chief Adviser Dr Muhammad Yunus has emphasised the necessity to create alternatives for younger individuals, asserting that Bangladesh’s giant inhabitants isn’t a burden however a beneficial useful resource.
A day later, Deputy Commissioners (DCs) proposed the introduction of common army coaching for teens, aiming to contain them within the nation’s defence efforts.
After all, this can be a political choice, and it requires severe examinations of the proposed programme’s budgetary implications.
Now we have finished some preliminary price range estimates. The excellent news is that we are able to introduce the programme progressively over 5-8 years, say starting with 10% of these turning 18 years as a pilot after which steadily cowl the complete cohort of 18-20 years outdated who’re in a position to serve.
The context – seismic demographic shift
In 50 years since independence, Bangladesh’s inhabitants greater than doubled from round 70 million (7 crore) to round 174 million (17 crore), turning Bangladesh as one of the densely populated nations on the earth. Regardless of a speedy fall in fertility, Bangladesh’s inhabitants will proceed to develop largely because of the momentum impact. UN Inhabitants Division initiatives that Bangladesh’s whole inhabitants will attain its peak in 2071 with a inhabitants of 226 million.
Bangladesh is effectively into the third part of demographic transition, having shifted from a excessive mortality-high fertility regime to a low mortality-low fertility one. As proven within the inhabitants pyramid (Determine 1), there’s a youth bulge comprising about 28% of the inhabitants within the age bracket 15-29.
Determine 1: Bangladesh’s inhabitants by age (2024)
The UN initiatives that by 2030, the proportion of youth within the age bracket 15-29 years will decline to round 25% and by 2050 to round 20%. So, that is our demographic second that comes solely as soon as (see Determine 2).
As Professor Yunus confused, younger inhabitants is a blessing – a supply of energy, power and vigour. A rustic with a lot of younger individuals not solely has a big pool of labor power, but in addition a big pool of potential future leaders – also known as “demographic dividend”.
Nonetheless, demographic dividend isn’t prearranged. It is a chance offered by the age structural transition. This window of alternative opens for a inhabitants solely as soon as. If missed, it might turn out to be a “demographic curse”.
A rustic can “turn out to be outdated earlier than turning into developed” – as we see within the case of Sri Lanka- characterised by a big proportion of aged inhabitants (non-working age) whereas the nation nonetheless struggles with poverty and infrastructure points. Thus, the nation not solely has fewer working-age individuals (i.e., a smaller work power), but in addition has to assist a lot of individuals of their older age. Such a demographic scenario doubtlessly hinders a rustic’s financial progress and creates challenges for its social welfare programs.
Thus, a rise within the proportion of younger individuals in a rustic’s inhabitants construction can deliver an enormous dividend offered this uncooked energy is transformed into extremely expert human sources, absorbed in productive employment and changed into entrepreneurs.
This may be proven by decomposing the neo-classical manufacturing operate as follows: Y/P = Y/SE x SE/E x E/LF x LF/WP x WP/P, the place Y = GDP, P = inhabitants, E = employment, SE = expert employment, LF = labour power, WP = working-age inhabitants.
Thus, GDP per capita (Y/P) is the product of:
- productiveness positive factors resulting from expert employment (Y/SE),
- proportion of expert employment (SE/E),
- employment fee (E/LF),
- labour power participation fee (LF/WP) and
- demography, i.e., proportion of working age inhabitants (WP/P).
Bangladesh’s demographic dividend could turn out to be a mirage. The current pupil/youth unrest which started with a requirement for quota reform and finally toppled the Hasina regime is a transparent indication of the financial system’s lack of ability to soak up these youthful individuals in productive employment or flip them into entrepreneurs. The official unemployment determine of about 3-4% primarily based on outdated labour power survey methodology doesn’t mirror the fact.
Nationwide service – a possible pressing resolution
Our most crucial problem is stopping demographic curse and reaping demographic dividend. Obligatory nationwide service, comprising some primary defence coaching, IT and common literacy-numeracy and vocational abilities, won’t solely deliver monumental financial advantages, but in addition put together the nation for catastrophe administration, particularly resulting from local weather disaster. It should additionally act as an efficient deterrent in opposition to doable risk to our nationwide sovereignty.
Presently, we’ve got round 1.6 crore (15.9 million) youths within the age bracket 20-24 – roughly 87 lakh females and 73 lakh males. Of the youth turning 18 years, about 29 lakh are in a position to serve, excluding child-bearing females (round 25%) and people with varied disabilities.
If 10% of the youth turning 18 years are included within the programme within the first yr, and Tk 12,000 per 30 days (equal to the present minimal wage) is used for every participant, then 5.8% of the entire 2024-25 price range proposed by the fallen regime would been required for defence. That is marginally greater than 5.3% allotted within the proposed 2024-25 price range. This determine rises to five.9% and 6.2% if coaching every participant requires Tk15,000 and Tk20,000, respectively.
The above tough and prepared estimates assume no change within the exiting allocation for different defence bills. Nor does the train contemplate effectivity positive factors.
Clearly, budgeting can’t be finished in isolation. The primary place to search out cash is reallocation as required by reprioritisation. It must be talked about right here that the fallen regime in its final price range proposed for 2024-25 in June 2024, elevated defence price range by 11% over the revised defence price range for 2023–24. Due to this fact, this needs to be examined severely; the priorities of the ‘new Bangladesh’ can’t be the identical because the fallen regime’s.
Cash can even come from the financial savings that may lead to different sectors, e.g., training as there can be diminished strain to develop post- secondary training. If vital, the prices of such programmes should be shared via greater taxes for the sake of securing a affluent way forward for this nation.
Empowering the youth
Coaching and ability growth via obligatory nationwide service is only one factor within the provide facet of the equation. The pool of accessible expertise must be empowered and deployed to yield demographic dividend. In any other case, it is going to be wasted and will even flip right into a disruptive power.
Our most crucial problem is stopping demographic curse. Not solely we’ve got to reap demographic dividend, but in addition guarantee what’s referred to within the literature as ‘second demographic dividend’. Whereas the ‘first demographic dividend’ because of the rise within the proportion of working-age inhabitants is transitory, the ‘second demographic dividend’ might be perpetual.
For this to occur nations have to put money into ability upgrading, assist entrepreneurial initiatives and progressive/versatile work setting to permit working even in older age and asset accumulation by employees.
Particularly, given the development in expertise, and significantly Synthetic Intelligence (AI), we urgently have to rethink ability growth for our youth. Many college levels could quickly turn out to be out of date as a result of the talents they provide are vulnerable to automation.
Satirically, many blue-collar, hands-on jobs are more likely to survive as a result of they require psychological and motor abilities people have developed over millennia and are actually troublesome to automate. We contemplate them low-skill as a result of we take these abilities as a right. Then again, jobs which require high-level vital considering may even survive. We’d like pressing actions to stop our youth from falling into the “center”.
Act now
Professor Yunus has rightly understood the important thing message of youth revolt that the youth must be positioned on the coronary heart of methods as they’re dedicated to creating a brand new world which is inclusive, truthful and simply. Due to this fact, it’s logical that his authorities initiates the measures when the aspirations of the revolution are nonetheless contemporary within the minds.
Anis Chowdhury, Emeritus Professor, Western Sydney College (Australia); held senior UN positions at Bangkok & New York in financial & social affairs
Khalid Saifullah, Statistician with years of expertise working in worldwide organisations
This opinion editorial was first printed in New Age (24 Feb. 2025), Dhaka, Bangladesh
IPS UN Bureau
© Inter Press Service (2025) — All Rights Reserved. Authentic supply: Inter Press Service
