Asiatische Entwicklungs- und Schwellenländer müssen in Bildung investieren, um ihrer demografischen Entwicklung Rechnung zu tragen

Asiatische Entwicklungs- und Schwellenländer werden die Vorteile ihrer "demografischen Dividende" nicht nutzen können, wenn sie nicht in ihre Bildungssysteme investieren, um den Bedarfen der modernen wirtschaftlichen Entwicklungen gerecht zu werden. So stellt es die asiatische Entwicklungsbank (Asian Development Bank ADB) in ihrem jüngst veröffentlichten jährlichen Report "Asian Development Outlook 2008" fest.


Developing Asia Needs to Invest in Education to Redeem Demographic Dividend, ADB Says

Developing Asian countries may fail to reap the “demographic dividend” if they do not invest in their education and training systems to make them more relevant to the demands of their rapidly modernizing economies, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) says in a new major report.

ADB’s flagship annual publication, Asian Development Outlook 2008 (ADO) released today, says developing Asia is passing through a demographic phase that has a high share of young adults in the total population. This “youth bulge” has the potential to stimulate economic growth through productive employment, asset creation, and investment.

“The growth opportunity must be harvested within the next two or three decades,” says ADB Chief Economist Ifzal Ali. “To redeem this demographic dividend, countries have to put in place an enabling policy environment and strengthen the institutional framework.”

ADO says the “youth bulge” will start to shrink around 2010, and by 2040 the percentage of young people in the total population will be about 14%, down from 20% in 2005. Before the bulge begins to shrink, it is critical that economies create productive and sustainable jobs for the young.

However, youth unemployment and joblessness are on the rise. In developing Asia as a whole, only about 60% of young men and 40% of young women are employed. Poor quality education and training are increasingly pushing impoverished, young workers into lowly-paid jobs in the informal sector.

The ADO says the main ingredients of an appropriate policy environment include boosting the relevance and quality of school curricula; providing support for vocational training; and helping kick-start job schemes that impart useful skills.

The report also warns that developing Asia, home to over two-fifths of the global population, is suffering from a serious shortage of skilled workers. The supply of highly skilled and professional workers has not been able to keep up with Asia’s booming demand. Widening skills’ gaps raise costs for businesses but also hobble productivity of industries and can constrain growth of the wider economy.

To fix this problem, an overhaul of Asia’s underperforming higher education systems is needed, but this will take time to yield results. Meanwhile, governments can implement short-term measures to help ease constraints. These include steps to stem the “brain drain”; encourage Asian emigrants to return home; making it easier for skilled non-Asians to live and work in the region; and raising retirement ages.

The ADO says too Asian economies could realize important gains by working together to liberalize intra-Asian movements of all workers, not just highly-skilled workers. It adds that intra-Asian migration is on the rise and that the trend will continue in the future.

“Efforts to promote regional cooperation on and liberalization of immigration, that would complement deepening integration in goods and capital markets, hold great promise,” says Mr. Ali.