{"id":241934,"date":"2023-05-11T20:07:32","date_gmt":"2023-05-11T14:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=241934"},"modified":"2023-05-11T20:07:32","modified_gmt":"2023-05-11T14:37:32","slug":"lots-of-people-good-tiny-plots-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/lots-of-people-good-tiny-plots-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"Lots Of People? Good. Tiny Plots? Bad"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source<\/strong>: The post is based on the article\u00a0\u201cLots Of People? Good. Tiny Plots? Bad<\/strong>\u201d published in The Times of India <\/strong>on\u00a011th<\/sup> May 2023<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Syllabus: GS 1 \u2013 Population & Associated Issues<\/strong><\/p>\n

Relevance: <\/strong>benefits of rising population<\/p>\n

News<\/strong>: According to the United Nations (UN) population estimates<\/strong>, this year, the population of India surpassed or will surpass that of China.\u00a0The article explains how the Indian economy would benefit from the increase in population.<\/p>\n

How will a rise in the younger population benefit the Indian economy?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

First<\/strong>, given the technology and volume of capital available, a younger population results in a larger workforce and hence a higher GDP.<\/p>\n

Second<\/strong>, a younger population saves more than old and this higher savings translates into higher investment. The higher investment further adds to the GDP.<\/p>\n

Third,<\/strong> a younger population brings greater energy and vibrancy to a nation, leading to more innovation and its greater exploitation.<\/p>\n

What are the concerns with the rising younger population?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The concern with the rising younger population is that it leads to greater unemployment.<\/strong> However, the unemployment rate depends more on policies, rather than the age composition of the population.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the unemployment rate in India has been low in the 3-5% range<\/strong> and the major concern with India is underemployment rather than unemployment.<\/p>\n

Although India has witnessed a decline in the ratio of underemployment post 1991 policy reforms, still more policy measures are required to accelerate this decline.<\/p>\n

What are other benefits of a larger population?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A larger population benefits the economy in terms of public goods. For example, India\u2019s digital infrastructure.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the cost side<\/strong>, with no additional cost for adding another user, the platform’s per-user cost decreases as the number of users increases.<\/p>\n

On the benefits side<\/strong>, as more users come on board, the value of the platform to the existing users rises since they can now transact with a larger number of users.<\/p>\n

The larger number of users also generates a larger volume of data increasing their utility to potential data users.<\/p>\n

This same argument also applies to other forms of infrastructure.<\/p>\n

For instance,<\/strong> once a road is constructed, adding additional users does not reduce its accessibility to other users until traffic congestion occurs. Existing roads become more useful as the road network grows.<\/p>\n

What are the disadvantages of a larger population?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A major disadvantage of a larger population is the fixed quantity of agricultural land.\u00a0<\/strong>There has been a consistent decline in the size of agricultural land holdings, e.g., 48% of land holdings, by 2015, had fallen below half hectare in size.<\/p>\n

Since agriculture involves a larger number of populations, the small agricultural land becomes uneconomical for the growing population. Hence, it is argued that a larger population is a bane for the economy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What can be the solution to underemployment in agriculture?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The solution to the underemployment in agriculture is not the small population but faster migration of the workforce out of agriculture into industry and services<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The migration out of agriculture has been a at a slow pace. This needs to be addressed by the government to reap the benefits of the larger younger population.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: The post is based on the article\u00a0\u201cLots Of People? Good. Tiny Plots? Bad\u201d published in The Times of India on\u00a011th May 2023. Syllabus: GS 1 \u2013 Population & Associated Issues Relevance: benefits of rising population News: According to the United Nations (UN) population estimates, this year, the population of India surpassed or will surpass… Continue reading Lots Of People? Good. Tiny Plots? Bad<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[263,10496],"class_list":["post-241934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-1","tag-times-of-india","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704887736},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}