Revision summary
India’s working-age bulge is a dividend only if it finds productive work. Open unemployment understates underemployment and informal thin work. PMKVY, apprenticeships, and ITIs target the skill mismatch. MGNREGA, Mudra, PMEGP, and PM Vishwakarma cover rural and self-employment gaps. PLI and Rozgar Melas try to add organised jobs; the test is regular work, not training counts.
Model answer
Introduction
A population dividend exists when the working-age share is high and dependents are fewer. India is in that window. The dividend becomes a burden if that bulge sits unemployed or in thin informal work. Government measures therefore have to turn bodies into skilled, paid work.
Body
Dividend and the unemployment problem
- A large youth cohort needs first jobs every year; even a modest open-unemployment rate hides huge absolute numbers and still larger underemployment.
- The mismatch is not only vacancy versus degree: many jobs are informal, and many graduates lack the skill employers want.
- If the dividend years pass without factory, care, and service absorption, India ages before it gets rich.
Measures adopted
- MGNREGA is the rural demand floor; it does not create a career, but it stops distress when farm work is thin.
- PM Kaushal Vikas Yojana, National Apprenticeship Promotion, and ITI upgradation try to close the skill gap that wastes the youth bulge.
- PMEGP, Start-up India, Stand-up India, Mudra, and PM Vishwakarma push self-employment where wage jobs are short.
- PLI, Make in India, and Rozgar Melas aim at organised manufacturing and public-recruitment bursts; NRLM and DAY-NULM organise poor women into livelihood groups.
The measures are many. The test is whether regular, skilled work rises faster than the labour force, not whether a new acronym appears.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD D[Population dividend] --> Y[Youth job need] Y --> U[Unemployment underemployment] SK[PMKVY apprenticeship] --> J[Skilled work] MG[MGNREGA Mudra PMEGP] --> J PLI[PLI Rozgar Mela] --> J J[J] --> D[D]
Conclusion
India’s dividend is real only if the working-age bulge is employed at rising productivity. Skilling, MGNREGA, enterprise credit, and PLI are the State’s tools. They work if they cut underemployment, not if they only count trainings.
Quick related
Students also ask
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What are major initiatives of Government of India for promoting technology-based solutions for rural upliftment?
Next question in the 2024 paper (Q6). View answer →
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Does a falling fertility rate end the dividend tomorrow?
No. The working-age share stays high for years after fertility falls. The risk is ageing later without having used the bulge.
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Is MGNREGA enough for the dividend?
It is a rural safety net. The dividend needs skilling and organised jobs as well.
Same topic · past papers
UPPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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2024 · Q2 · UPGS3 · 8 marks
Give a brief account of measures adopted by the Government to provide adequate credit to the farmers.
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