Generational Spasm

To address the growing unrest across the world, we need to effectively utilise the demographic dividend.

- Richard Mahapatra

EVERYBODY IS protesting everything. Unbelievable in size and in the degree of mobilisation, mass protests have spread across the whole world. The protests are on both sides of ideological boundary— while some are protesting against left-of-the-centre policies, others are protesting right-of-the-centre politics. While in democracies protests are over the decline of electoral influences in governance, in non-democratic set ups, people are demanding electoral rights.

Countries and political formations define “protests” differently and there is no global standard. But according to the International Labour Organization (ILO), which reviewed many surveys and databases, protests surged in 2011-12; reported a lull phase for some time; and, once again became widespread in 2015-17. And they took place in all continents and in equal ferocity.

If to be young is to be restless, these protests reflect the state of global demography. The planet was never so young. Close to 1.8 billion people are between the ages of 15 and 29; more than four-fifths of them living in developing countries. In South Asia and Africa, one in three people is a young person. As economists say, this is the phase of the great demographic dividend for the world. It means, if encashed, the young population can usher unheard prosperity to the world by simply deploying their critical capital of labour and skills. Then why are they restless? Why is the world becoming so volatile?

The restlessness is probably due to two reasons— the fragile state of the economy and the declining effectiveness of electoral democracy to address the aspirations of the youth. In between, the planet has a very narrow window left to use the demography dividend.