The Number of Young People
At present across the 75 countries covered by Global Demographic Ltd, there are a total of 1.34 billion persons aged 14 years or under, requiring education and nurture. Over the next decade this will decline slightly to 1.33 billion reflecting slow birth rates.
Of these 1.34 billion young persons, an estimated 989 million or 74% are located in South America, Middle East, India and Developing Asia (excluding China and India). Assuming that they enter the work force on turning 15 (not strictly correct but a good indicator age), then these regions will have an additional 989 million workers per annum which is 59% of their existing total labour force.
It is interesting to compare India with china. The age difference between these two countries is considerable. China, with 1.3 billion persons has 216 million under 15 years of age. This compares with India with a population of 1.16 billion of which 375 million are aged under 15 years of age.
The key question faced by these countries is can they grow their economies fast enough to prairies employment for this 'wave' of job seekers?
