Note: This is part two of a two-part series on the roots and impact of India’s 1991 crisis. Part one is here.
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Today, two-thirds of Indians still live in rural areas – making the country roughly as urbanized as China in 1995, South Korea in 1965, Japan in 1935, Europe in 1905, or America in 1885. However, India's rural-to-urban migration is gathering pace. Over the next two decades, its urban areas are forecast to gain a New York City's worth of new residents every ten months – laying the groundwork for an extended period of elevated economic growth.
Prior to reforms sparked by India's 1991 balance of payments crisis, establishment economists coined the belittling term “Hindu rate of growth” – implicitly attributing the country's lackluster economic performance to its cultural and religious traditions. Of course, India’s post-1991 economic record makes clear that the issue was never a lack of talent, skill, or entrepreneurial dynamism. For more on this topic, check out the India before 1991: tiger caged dispatch.
India has the youngest population among the world’s twenty largest economies. Two-thirds of its 1.3 billion people are 35 or under; the roughly half a billion Indians who are under 20 years old account for one-fifth of the entire world’s young people. For more on this topic, check out the Demographics dispatch.
Note: This is part one of a two-part series on the roots and impact of India’s 1991 crisis. Part two is here.
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For a deeper dive into India's political and economic history, check out the dispatches covering the lead-up to India’s 1991 crisis (“India before 1991: tiger caged”), the reforms unleashed by that year’s events (“India since 1991: tiger uncaged”), and the parts of the economy in which India's post-1991 liberalization remains a work in progress ("India's unfinished revolution").
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