Bhaskar Chakravorti in The Indian Express: “Just blame it on millennials: They are investing in experiences, not consumption and commodities”

Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s Financial Minister, recently criticized millennials for their lack of economic engagement. According to him, the generation’s consumer habits are negatively effecting India’s GDP and economic prosperity.

Retorting this lofty accusation is Dean Chakravorti, who explains the socio-economic factors behind the generation’s changing behavior and subsequent economic woes. Millennial’s apprehension towards marriage, the popularity of the “sharing-economy” and downbeat employment statistics are just some of the forces causing this shift in consumerism. To strengthen India’s buckling economy, Chakravorti suggests that Sitharaman ask why the economy isn’t delivering the jobs, skills and better pay that Modi promised instead of making broad generalizations.

Indian millennials had been handed a political bonanza: Two terms of Modi, a leader they adore at home and in Houston; a muscular post-Article 370 India, which seems to have left a mark on relatively few millennial consciences; and demonetisation, a bad idea then, worse idea now, but popular nevertheless with the demographic. – Bhaskar Chakravorti