Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Article seeks to inscribe some empirical evidences, based on an analysis of economic-demographic development of modern China and India, into the long-term theoretical debate on the unity and diversity of modernization processes. Both modern India and China have successfully converted their enormous demographic might into political and economic power. In both, increasing domestic consumption, driven by the rapid economic growth and huge population, help to balance the internal and export-oriented sectors of economy. On the other hand, economic-demographic development of both China and India are unique in many ways. China’s sweeping emergence as a world factory, and multimillion rural-to-urban migration could scarcely be replicated by other developing countries to solve the problems of employment. Unlike China, in India, with its specific political institutions and deeply ground rooted family patriarchy, the quantitative changes turned into qualitative ones more slowly and smoothly. Nevertheless, in India the share of women working outside the households rapidly increased for the last years, platform job boards contributed to modernizing of informal sector, and GDP growth rate became faster than in China. Modern economic-demographic development of both India and China are in a good agreement with multiple modernities and path dependence theories’ reflections on interweaving of unique and universal in global transformations. While the West, as Huntington argued, is unique, China, India, or Russia are unique not in the less degree. Uniqueness’ thesis warns against mechanical replication or imposing of alien patterns but should not prevent from seeing of common in the world development.
Author: M. Klupt
Institution: Saint Petersburg State University of Economics
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4411027861