The World Bank’s latest stark warning regarding our country’s rapidly fading demographic dividend should not be taken lightly, and must be treated with the seriousness it warrants.
For two decades, state planners have casually boasted about our youthful population as if economic prosperity were an automatic guarantee. Yet, as new data confirms, the window of demographic opportunity is closing at an alarming pace.
With our country set to transition into an "ageing" society next year and an "aged" nation by 2051, Bangladesh is running out of time. Failing to transform our young population into a highly skilled, productively employed workforce before the dependency ratio flips is an existential policy failure.
While there are numerous reasons for why we have essentially failed to capitalize on the gift that is our demographic dividend, it can primarily be attributed to systemic misdirection.
Over 84% of our workforce remains trapped in informal employment, where low wages, non-existent social protections, and minimal productivity reign.
Another notable failure is our inability to empower women, with female labour force participation languishing at a dismal 38% and effectively locking out half the nation's potential productivity.
Instead of building a knowledge-based economy capable of generating high-value formal jobs, successive policy failures have left our youth under-skilled, underemployed, and ill-prepared for what the future holds.
It is time to abandon rhetoric and immediately execute a comprehensive demographic strategy to make the most of the time we do have left.
The clock is ticking, and the window is closer to being shut than most realize. Failure to act now means our demographic dividend permanently collapsing into a demographic disaster.