The Dragon Turns around and the Elephant Moves Forward: Inequality in China and India under Globalization

Abstract

This article tends to suggest that the strategy of embracing globalization has been helpful in raising GDP growth in China and India. The higher growth record also coincided with increasing income inequality, wealth inequality and regional inequality. While China seems to have made some success in making a turnaround in inequality, in India inequalities are on the rise. The present study attributes the observed trend to the nature of structural change and the resultant employment generation in terms of both its quantity and its quality. FDI and trade under globalization also worked towards increasing inequalities. The key issue is why globalization as implemented in India failed to generate employment unlike what happened in China. India seems to have been not adequately successful in globalizing at ‘our terms and at our own pace’, whereas China has been able to successfully manage its transition to the global market, which in turn, at least partly, explains the observed differences in the trend in growth and inequality in these two countries. At the same time, while there have been targeted and effective policy measures in China to address inequalities, in India, such policies are yet to show up their results.