Finland is the happiest country in the world according to the World Happiness Index. Here citizens enjoy a high standard of living, universal health care, an excellent education system and very low crime, among other things. On the other hand, India ranks poorly on the world happiness index – 139th in a list of 149 (we were at 140 the previous year). And yet, there is something that Finland seems to need from India.
Like many other developed nations, Finland’s is an ageing population. As such it is experiencing acute shortages within the workforce. According to a recruiter speaking to a news agency, the country needs help to ‘cover the cost of the greying generation’. The country now has almost 40 senior citizens (over the age of 65) per 100 working-age people.
In less than ten years, that ration of 4:10 is likely to rise even further. It is widely acknowledged that the country needs about 20 to 30 thousand immigrants each year just to keep up their public services. India is one of the nations that Finland hopes to attract skilled workers from – particularly in the maritime and IT sectors. The country has had a Talent Boost scheme for years now, hoping to attract people from Spain, Slovakia, Russia, India and Southeast Asia.
We often curse population growth in India and believe that it is the reason behind all of what plagues us: limited resources, unemployment, poverty, corruption, squalour, shortages in education and healthcare. However, our people are also our strength. The fact that we have a young population means that we have more people who are able to work and fewer older people who are dependent upon them.
This is India’s demographic dividend. We score above China as well in this regard. The myopic and cruel one-child policy of the Chinese ensured that the population growth slowed. However, it also ensured that the country now has an ageing population with a greater proportion of older dependents vis-à-vis productive young people. Single children struggling to look after older parents can be a drain on family resources and this is now common in China.
As of 2018, India’s population reached an interesting milestone: this is when the working-age population started to become larger (people aged 15 to 65) than the number of dependents (children below 14 and adults over 65). This will be the case till 2055. So clearly India is in a position to export workers, provided we are able to train them adequately and make use of available technology.
So, if Indians shifted to Finland for work, this would be a win-win situation, wouldn’t it? The problem is that much of India’s political class still make mileage out of the ‘population explosion’ theory. There is alarmism that often targets certain communities for adding an extra burden to India’s resources by virtual of their numbers.
This brand of dog-whistle politics has always worked with the emotional Indian voter. Politicians would do better to invest in skilling, education and healthcare to empower people and make them more employable. However, blaming our population is always easier. Over time we have seen India’s population growth declining significantly in all but the poorest and most backward regions of the country. So clearly this is a problem that is resolving gradually, but politicians perhaps see no electoral benefit in investing in India's demographic dividend.
In Finland as well, there is an anti-immigrant sentiment that is hostile to people seen as ‘outsiders’ even when those outsiders are necessary and beneficial for their society. Clearly, suspicion, hostility and prejudice can trump even self-interest. So while we Indians can be quite myopic in the way that we perceive our greatest resource – people – the happiest country in the world does not appear to be a whole lot wiser.
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