Educational Empowerment for Economic Advancement  

The capacity to store and transmit knowledge has significantly propelled human evolution, with education playing a central role in enhancing this capacity and fostering human growth. The labor skills of an educated individual are notably higher than those of an uneducated one, leading to increased income generation and a substantial contribution to economic growth. 

Besides financial benefits, education elevates one’s social standing, enables informed life choices, and fosters innovation. Furthermore, it facilitates the adaptation of new technologies, accelerating national development. 

Therefore, the expansion of educational opportunities is widely advocated for, as it not only enriches individual lives but also catalyzes economic and societal advancement.

Human Capital formation for Human Growth 

Human capital refers to the transformation of human resources into a more skilled and knowledgeable workforce, like engineers and doctors, through education and training. This transformation is analogous to turning physical resources like land into physical capital like factories.

Human Capital: A Comprehensive Exploration of Formation, Sources, and Distinctions

• Education: It is the primary source of human capital formation.  
  • it significantly enhances future earning capacities, akin to companies investing in capital goods to increase future profits. Additionally, education plays a crucial role in fostering human growth by imparting essential skills and knowledge.

Select Indicators of Development in Education and Health Sectors

• Health: As a crucial input for individual and national development, health is integral to human growth. 
  • Expenditures on preventive, curative, and social medicine, clean drinking water, and good sanitation are vital for increasing the supply of a healthy labour force. Refer to Table.
• On-the-Job Training: Firms provide on-the-job training to improve worker productivity.
  • Expenses incurred in in-house or off-campus training are seen as investments with returns in the form of enhanced labour productivity, ultimately leading to human growth.
• Migration: Individuals migrate for better job opportunities and higher salaries, despite the costs associated with migration; 
  • This mobility is an aspect of human capital formation.
• Information: Expenditures on acquiring market information are crucial for making informed decisions regarding investments in human capital and its efficient utilisation. Information, in this context, acts as a catalyst for individual and collective human growth.

The Nexus of Human Capital, Productivity, and Economic Growth

There is a positive relationship between human capital and economic growth. A sufficient amount of human capital is essential for producing more skilled professionals, which, in turn, is critical for economic growth.

• Income Generation: Productivity is a measure of how efficiently a person, company, or country produces goods and services.
  • Innovation is the act of introducing something new, such as a new idea, method, or device.
  • Educated and healthy individuals contribute more to national income due to their higher labour skills and uninterrupted labour supply.
• Productivity and Innovation: Human capital boosts labour productivity, stimulates innovations, and creates the ability to absorb new technologies, facilitating economic growth.

• Education and Technological Adaptation: Education enables understanding of societal changes and scientific advancements, fosters inventions and innovations, and facilitates adaptation to new technologies.
• Empirical Evidence: Although empirical evidence linking human capital and economic growth is somewhat nebulous due to measurement challenges.
  • it’s recognised that a high level of human capital can stimulate income growth and vice versa.

India’s Strategic Embrace of Human Capital for Global Economic Leadership

• India’s Recognition: India acknowledged the importance of human capital in economic growth early on, emphasising human resource development as a key part of its development strategy in the Seventh Five-Year Plan.
• National Education Policy 2020: The policy underscores the rapid global changes in the knowledge landscape.
  • And the growing demand for a multidisciplinary, skilled workforce in light of technological advances and global challenges like climate change and pandemics.
• Policy Vision: The vision outlines how human capital formation, steered by the evolving knowledge landscape, will propel India towards a higher growth trajectory, aligning with its ambition to become one of the world’s three largest economies.

Gender Dynamics in Economic Activities and Opportunities

• Meaning: Gender disparity is a statistical difference between men and women, boys and girls, that reflects inequality in some quantity. 
• Economic Activities: These are categorised into three primary sectors: primary, secondary, and tertiary. 
• Key Sectors Contributing to National Income Growth: These sectors encompass a range of activities that contribute to the production of goods and services, ultimately adding value to the national income.
  • Primary Sector: Involves agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, fishing, poultry farming, mining, and quarrying.
  • Secondary Sector: Primarily focused on manufacturing.
  • Tertiary Sector: The sector encompasses trade, transport, communication, banking, education, health, tourism, services, and insurance.
• Market and Non-Market Activities: Economic activities are further divided into market and non-market activities.
  • Market Activities: These are performed for pay or profit, including the production of goods and services and government service.
  • Non-Market Activities: Entail production for self-consumption such as consumption and processing of primary products and own account production of fixed assets.
• Historical Gender Division of Labour: Due to historical and cultural factors, a division of labour exists between men and women.
  • It often relegates women to unpaid domestic chores while men engage in paid work.

• The Impact of Education: Education and skill level are major determinants of earnings in the market. 
  • Women with higher education and skill levels tend to earn comparable to men and find opportunities in organised sectors like teaching, medicine, administration, and technologically driven jobs.
• Challenges Faced by Women: Women, especially those with meagre education and low-skill formation, face disparities like lower pay, lack of job security, and inadequate legal protection in the workforce. 
  • The absence of basic facilities like maternity leave, childcare, and other social security systems further exacerbates the challenges for women.