If hip and happening is synonymous with a large youth population, then move over Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore.
NEW DELHI: If hip and happening is synonymous with a large youth population, then move over Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore. Make way for Gangtok, Kohima, Shillong, Aizawl, and Allahabad!
These towns top a Youthfulness Index of cities measured according to the share of the 15-24 age group in the total population. So says the City Skyline of India 2006 report by Delhi-based research firm Indicus Analytics.
The larger metros may have more youth in absolute numbers, but their share in the total population is less than in smaller cities.
So, are big cities no longer attracting the youth? Amit Kumar Jha from Patna, who has been living in Bangalore since 2004, says he would prefer to live in his hometown. The high cost of living and poor infrastructure detract from Bangalore’s glitz, says sociologist GK Karanth.
Does that mean youth in the metros are heading out? That seems to be true in Kolkata where, says Prasanta Roy, member of the Knowledge Commission, the youth are leaving for better opportunities elsewhere.
Though the IT boom is beginning, out-migration is higher than in-migration.
In addition, there’s a demographic factor at work.
“The decline in the fertility rate in smaller cities is not as fast as in the big metros,” says Moneer Alam, professor of economic demography at the Institute of Economic Growth (IEG). Besides, longevity is higher in the bigger cities, pushing up the share of the older population.
The smaller towns are also the first point of migration for people from the rural hinterland, notes RP Tyagi, assistant professor at the IEG’s Population Resource Centre, while migration in the metros is reaching saturation point. That explains the oddity of the top five; they are all centres of economic activity in otherwise underdeveloped areas.
This holds true for Tier 2 cities as well. Surat and Pune not only have the highest number of migrants among the 10 biggest cities, but half of these are recent migrants (who migrated less than four years ago). Delhi and Mumbai have fewer migrants in their respective populations and recent migrants make up less than half of these.
Bangalore has the highest share of recent migrants - 56 per cent - not only because of booming employment opportunities but also because it scores high on the education front, with 285 engineering seats and 79 MBA seats per 1,00,000 population, the highest among the 10 top cities. But Karanth feels the hype is beginning to wear off.
Chennai is beginning to pull young people back. Hence the high share of recent migrants, though the share of the youth population and migrants is on the lower side. The city, notes R Chandrasekaran, president and managing director of Cognizant, houses all the top 10 IT service companies. “At Cognizant, we have seen a significant proportion of professionals from other parts of India and returning NRIs making a beeline for Chennai,” he says.
Employment opportunities are also beginning to grow in Tier 2 cities like Pune and Coimbatore, says Madhu Damodaran of TeamLease Services. Coimbatore is also a major education centre, with 226 engineering seats and 45 MBA seats per 1,00,000 population, second only to Bangalore.
The higher share of the youth population in the Tier 2 cities, says Tyagi, will throw up age-specific demand for goods and services. Will they be able to meet that? That’s a different story.
With Arun Ram in Chennai, Nandini Goswami in Kolkata, and Bhargavi Kerur in Bangalore
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