Indian workforce is young , and that's good for growth.
First a primer on how a country's economy and it's population mix are connected. A society stays poor, sadly, when infant mortality rates fall, as that would mean more non-productive dependents.
In stage-two, awareness of better child-health, and the difficulties of feeding a large family persuades people to have fewer children. Coinciding with this, is a growing work-force of young that diminishes dependants and puts extra money in people's pockets. This is the stage when, spurred by a large work-force, disposable incomes and rising productivity, the economy enters boom times.
In the third stage, decline begins as the work-force grows old. Birth-rates may also have declined in the prosperity phase; the percentage of old-age dependents grows in size. If a society, had planned for this stage with the right investments during phase-two, its economy is adequate for its people, but growth rates are no-where near what they were in boom-time.
But, if political mis-management has not planned for stage-three, the cycle can repeat with a viciousness.
India's position now.
The good news for India is that she may be entering phase-two!
But, before we go further and congratulate ourselves, here is a cautionary note: demography influences only a third of the GDP. The rest must come from right, timely and adequate inputs into education, health-care, infrastructure and governance.
If India does get it right, her current population, far from being a burden, is in fact an asset.
Writing in BusinessWorld [ 'Miracle Economy?', Jan 10,2000], Nitin Srivastava gives us some facts to mull with satisfaction. "First, in the late 70s and early 80s, the birth rate was very high. In the coming years, the surge in the workforce, especially in the 20-40 years age group, can be attributed to this phenomenon. Second, between 1991 and 1995, for the first time, the birth rate fell more than the death rate. So from now on, there will be fewer dependents to feed."
India's emerging promise is confirmed by empirical data as well.
Experience of the 'tigers'.
Economist Paul Krugman observing the tiger-economies of Asia, through the filter of this population dynamics , foresaw long before others the tail-spin that hit them a couple of years ago. Though many have recovered and put their houses in order, they may in fact be exiting stage-two. China may exit the soonest. But, this doesn't mean poverty will return, since, as we saw earlier, this theory in only a part of the growth story. But these economies will not see 10% to 12% growth rates for a long, long time.
In this phase offset between India and the Asian economies, India may in fact, derive an additional advantage. India may become the preferred destination for investors and with productivity rising her competitive edge in the world markets may be sharper.
For, Indians who remember those derisive references to 'the Hindu rate of growth of 2% per annum', and despairing of her economy ever bringing prosperity to her long-suffering people, this news of her massive population configured for good times, would indeed bring cheer.
It is only appropriate to end this with, a prayer that we get the rest of our efforts right!
In a big country like India where the natural resources are in abundant, over population must not be a burden at all, if a strong political will exist to plan and utilise them at maximun in all possible ways. The people are ready to do hard work, providing the opportunities are open and available to them, which is not upto the requirement at present, hence many become lazy and remain poor. Apart from the lack of political will, corruption is another evil which is playing it's worst role in this matter.
No where in the world reservations are implemented in the field of education and employment. This is creating an atmosphere where un-eligible candidates grab the opportunities, and the intelligents get depressed, migrate to other countries and proove their talents and give best service to foreign countries and not to their nation or countrymen.
This situation can be corrected by implementing all reservations, welfare schemes etc based on economically backwardness to the eligible candidates. Hope the present and coming generations will correct this and move forward in a right direction.
Overpopulation" is only a burden when burdensome people overpopulate. How could we help turn overpopulation into an asset? Encourage the self sufficient, socially conscious, economically responsible, educated, physically and mentally capable people to populate to their hearts content while restraining excessive (note: not ALL) reproduction by the less than capable civil contributors. Theoretically speaking, however, the most mentally and physically capable would not 'over'populate in the first place (as they would understand its disastrous implications) while the less than capable continue to ignorantly and destructively reproduce like bunny rabbits. Overpopulation is an inevitability and a helpful (although ultimately suicidal) goal of any species.
I see the point of your question, but it seems to me that 'overpopulation' in itself demonstrates a non-asset. All that rambling aside: The greatest asset to be gained is not one beneficial to the overpopulated country, but an asset to every other nation to gain education from. The asset is: Other civilizations can learn (a) how the overpopulated civilization utilized its resources to expand so significantly, and (b) how to use that knowledge to provide greater opportunity for continued survival (over time) as opposed to creating another self-destructive boom (by using the resource-knowledge as essentially a 'super-civilization growth hormone'). As far as what types of jobs or economic/social systems to turn greater density into greater asset, I'm sure someone else has a better idea! Thanks.