Assam’s Gen Z can turn demography into destiny

Siddharth Roy

(siddharth001.roy@gmail.com)

Assam’s greatest development opportunity may not lie beneath its soil, inside  its forests or along its rivers. It may be sitting in its classrooms, colleges, start-ups, workshops and increasingly connected towns: a young generation that will determine whether the State converts its demographic structure into sustained prosperity.

Gen Z is often described through stereotypes — digitally immersed, impatient with hierarchy, socially conscious and unwilling to accept inherited limitations. But for Assam, the more useful question is not what Gen Z represents culturally. It is what this generation can produce economically, socially and environmentally if the state creates the right conditions.

The opportunity is substantial. NITI Aayog’s 2025 assessment puts Assam’s projected population at 35.7 million, with a dependency ratio of 53.7%. Only 15.6% of the population was urban in the period assessed, meaning that Assam’s demographic transition is still unfolding. The state also had an annual unemployment rate of 1.7% in 2022-23, according to the report. These numbers, however, should not encourage complacency. A demographic dividend is not created simply because a state has many young people. It is created when young people are healthy, educated, skilled, employed and productive.

That distinction is crucial for Assam.

The state has spent years discussing the need to generate employment for its youth. Yet the next stage must be more ambitious. Assam should aim not merely to make its young people employable but to make them creators of economic value.

This means changing the way we perceive education. Degrees alone cannot constitute a development strategy. Assam needs universities and colleges that connect learning with the sectors in which the state has genuine economic potential: tourism, logistics, tea, agriculture, petrochemicals, construction, healthcare, renewable energy, biotechnology, handicrafts, digital services and the creative economy.

The state’s skill-development architecture is moving in this direction. The skill, employment and entrepreneurship department has identified sectors including automobiles, oil, hospitality and tourism as areas of potential, while the Assam Skill Development Mission provides placement-linked training and entrepreneurship support. The proposed Assam Skill University at Mangaldai, supported by the Asian Development Bank, is another opportunity to connect education with industry requirements.

But institutions alone will not create a demographic dividend. The private sector must become an equal partner.

Assam cannot expect every talented young person to secure a government job. Nor can a sustainable economy depend indefinitely on public-sector recruitment. The state needs an ecosystem in which a young person from Sivasagar can build a tea-technology enterprise, a student from Barpeta can create a digital services company, an engineer in Guwahati can develop flood-resilient infrastructure solutions and a young entrepreneur in Majuli can take an indigenous craft to international markets.

This requires better access to credit, mentorship, incubation, markets and digital infrastructure. It also requires a cultural shift: entrepreneurship must stop being presented as an alternative for those who fail to secure salaried employment. For a young state, entrepreneurship is not a fallback. It is a development strategy.

Gen Z could also become Assam’s most important environmental constituency.

This generation has inherited an Assam confronting floods, erosion, wetland degradation, biodiversity loss and the effects of a changing climate. Its members will live longest with the consequences of environmental decisions made today. Combining their familiarity with digital technology and traditional ecological knowledge can create a new model of development.

Young engineers, researchers and entrepreneurs could build businesses around flood forecasting, climate-resilient construction, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, waste management and ecological tourism. Assam does not need to choose between economic growth and environmental protection if its young workforce is equipped to innovate at their intersection.

There is another opportunity that deserves greater attention: Assam’s cultural economy.

The state possesses extraordinary linguistic, artistic and cultural diversity. Gen Z is uniquely positioned to take this inheritance beyond conventional cultural preservation. Music, cinema, animation, gaming, fashion, food, literature, handloom and digital storytelling can transform cultural assets into economic assets without reducing culture to a commodity.

But demographic dividends can also become demographic liabilities.

If educated young people cannot secure meaningful work, the result may be prolonged migration, frustration and a widening disconnect between education and employment. Assam already has to compete with larger metropolitan economies for its best talent. Losing young people is not inherently negative — migration can bring remittances, skills and networks — but losing them because the State cannot provide opportunities is an economic leakage.

The answer is therefore not to prevent migration. It is to create reasons for young Assamese to return, invest and build.

The government’s employment institutions must consequently become more than mere registration centres. Assam has 52 employment exchanges, while its employment system also provides vocational guidance and career counselling. These platforms could become genuine labour-market intelligence centres, informing young people about emerging occupations, wages, skill requirements and opportunities beyond traditional career paths.

The state should also measure its demographic dividend differently. Counting the number of young people is insufficient. Assam should track how many acquire market-relevant skills, how many enter productive employment, how many start enterprises, how many women enter the workforce and how many young businesses survive beyond their first five years.

Women must be central to this strategy. A large share of the potential workforce remaining outside paid employment prevents the realisation of a demographic dividend. The participation of young women in technology, manufacturing, services, entrepreneurship and the green economy should therefore be treated as an economic priority, not merely a social objective.

Ultimately, Assam’s Gen Z will not be defined by its age. It will be defined by the opportunities it receives and the institutions it inherits. The state can build more roads, industries and universities. But infrastructure becomes productive only when people possess the skills and confidence to use it. Assam’s young population can become its greatest economic asset — but only if education becomes capability, capability becomes employment, and employment becomes innovation.

The demographic dividend is not a cheque that Assam will automatically receive. It is an opportunity with an expiry date.

The task before Assam is to ensure that its youngest generation does not merely inherit the state’s future.

It builds it.