India can’t afford the comforts technology provides. Here’s why

The streets of Varanasi, India. Pic credit: HappyTrips.com.

There’s a belief globally that we have a burgeoning middle class in India – and we’re following in the footsteps of China’s massive change from immense poverty to a stable middle class. 

But that’s really not the case. There was a very interesting article on Scroll some time back explaining this.

According to the article, “China…saw its middle-income proportion go up from 3% in 2001 to 18% in 2011.” This growth in disposable income, coupled with technology, fueled growth in consumption, most probably with some visibility of profitability for businesses in the country. 

In India this hasn’t happened. 

“All those stories about India’s burgeoning middle-class have little to do with reality: India is, as it has always been, woefully poor.”

Instead, it seems that the major shift that’s happened is the really really poor are now just poor. And no where close to being determined middle class by any definition. The article does a good job of showing how middle class globally is defined. 

Here are a couple of charts showing this move.

We don’t know how fast this low income bracket will start moving into middle income, but my guess is quite slowly. There is a lack of education, lack of opportunities, and lack of incentive for anyone in a position of power to do anything drastic about it. And even if we were motivated, these things take much more time in multi-party democracies like India vs countries like China. 

If this is the reality, it’s going to be tougher and tougher for transactional business dealing with consumers (like ecommerce) that make money on delivery/logistics to grow in spite of this long term. Here’s why.

More woes