The Dividend Question
A sourced, archived data story about Indians aged 15–29
- Category
- Data Story
- Status
- Live
- Role
- Solo build
- Date
- 2026-09-14
- Built with
- Astro, TypeScript, Zod, Cloudflare Pages
An independent data story on India's youth. India has the world's largest youth population and routinely expects a demographic dividend from it, yet the Global Flourishing Study ranks it 20th of 22 countries on subjective flourishing — and its young adults report lower wellbeing than its old. Seven short modules each test one candidate explanation.
Problem: The demographic dividend is usually stated as a given. The Global Flourishing Study ranks India 20th of 22 countries on subjective flourishing, with a U-shaped curve by age: young Indians report lower wellbeing than older Indians. Having the youth is not the same as having the flourishing.
Solution: A hub of seven modules, each testing one candidate explanation rather than asserting it. Every number is a row carrying its source, year and definitional flag, and definitions travel with the number — NEET 15–59 versus 15–24, formal versus any vocational training.
Outcome: Live at youth.sankettambare.in. A figure five or more years old carries a data-age badge, correlational studies are described as correlational, and the radicalization module presents its two cases at the same weight with no prevalence estimate.
- Seven modules — Flourishing, Jobs & Skills, Education, Digital Life, Political Awareness, Radicalization & Online Belonging, Stay or Go — each a 2–4 minute read
- Every one of its 35 figures is a sourced row in one data file, and an unknown citation id fails the build
- Read and Explore modes: guess a number before the page shows it
- An Archives page for Wayback Machine and archive.today snapshots of every source, plus SHA-256 checksums for the raw data files
Tags: #data, #data journalism, #youth, #public policy, #claude code