In the coming decades, spatial mobility is going to increase as far as Asia is concerned. It will mostly involve occupational mobility and rural to urban mobility. At the same time urbanisation of the Asian societies will continue at a rapid pace. Therefore, if the predictions are true, most of the countries in Asia, including India and China will cease to be rural majority countries in the next 30/40 years. This change will be shaped by the nature of economic modernisation presently underway in these countries. Due to technology based export and exports driven growth, urban economies are expanding more rapidly than the agricultural economies of Asian nations. Thus, the growth is urban based.
Due to the demands of the new economy, the educational profile of the population is also undergoing change with greater stress on service related occupations. However since the present economic growth is low on employment rates, the future course of stability will depend on the ability of the Asian economies to absorb the youth into its workforce and in keeping the unemployment rates manageable.
Thus keeping the high growth rates up for the foreseeable future will be one of the biggest challenges for the Asian countries. Otherwise, it could lead to increase in the number of urban poor as well as sharpen the rural urban divide which will spiral into distress migration if rural agriculture based jobs do not generate enough revenues to sustain peasant livelihood.
If the future course of development continues to add to the regional inequalities within large countries of Asia, then it could have political implications, given the fact that already there are regional and sub regional tensions present in this region that are fuelled by unequal development. Added to this will be the challenge of migration due to climate change inducing unpredictable precipitation patterns. This can also have negative impact on food security for highly populous countries like India and China.
The new urbanisation will lead to highly networked populations and informationised economies. It could lead to change in the nature of domestic political processes in these countries. Even as urbanisation reduces ethnic and racial difference, migration will increase mixed urban population which can lead to ethnic politics based on allegations of bias leading to potential conflicts. This situation could become problematic if there are other triggers to conflict, economic slowdowns or increase in urban unemployment for example. If there is persistent inequality of income among urban population then there could be higher rates of urban crimes leading to ethnic profiling of crimes. If not handled carefully, the urban based ethnic divide would hamper the Asian Century in a substantial manner.
Due to population boom of 1980s, India will have high ratio of working age population along with China which expects its population to stabilise by 2030. However, both these countries will have to prepare for ageing profile of their population once it stabilises by 2030/35. How they design coping strategies will be interesting to observe. Countries like Japan will have to open its doors for immigration to sustain its economy due to ageing population, something that will start the gradual demographic and ethnic shift in that country’s population profile. Trans-border migration will increase leading to the substantial increase in the Asian Diaspora in Europe, Australia and United States which will change the patterns of interaction between countries if the migrant population is substantial enough to influence policy decisions.
Some of the Asian countries have traditional bias towards male child and female children tend to suffer from this policy. This is true particularly in China and India. Gender imbalances are already starting to show negative impacts in these societies leading to crimes against women. If the gender imbalance continues to grow then there will be increase in the marginalisation of women in many parts of Asia and it will reverse the benefits of any economic miracles. As the statistical reveal, economic prosperity is not necessarily a corrective measure as far as gender imbalance is concerned. Therefore, this will be an important area to observe and perhaps influence to make important policy changes towards gender equality by 2030 in Asia.
Gunjan Singh is a Research Assistant at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi
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