Does economics play a role in how active/inactive people are and why - Essay Example

For instance, …the maturing of baby boomers in the 1980s and 1990s combined with the technology revolution, the Reagan tax cuts, and the declines in commodity prices and interest rates, produced a powerful cocktail which propelled stocks 14-fold in the 18 years between 1982 and 2000. (Karam). The ratio of economically active to economically inactive people is an important measure of the change in demographics and its effects upon a nation’s economy are great. The economy will prosper more if 75 per cent people work and 25 per cent study or retire as compared to the case in which percentage of working and non-working people is 50 each.

Wealth produced by active people not only benefits them, but is also necessary for the inactive lot of a society. In physical terms, rich people are more inactive physically as compared to poor people. With lots of money, people tend to facilitate themselves everywhere in such a way that their physical exertion is reduced to minimal. In order to analyze this argument, it is customary to refer to a developing country like India instead of a developed country like USA because poverty is more obvious and influential upon the living standard in the former than the latter.

As of 2010, more than 37% of India’s population of 1.35 billion still lives below the poverty line. More than 22% of the entire rural population and 15% of the urban population of India exists in this difficult physical and financial predicament. (“Poverty in India”). In India, the topmost priority of an individual is to have a car. As soon as an Indian has enough money, he/she tends to purchase a car. When the individual grows richer, he/she tends to keep a servant or a maid. A servant in India is not only a source of help for the employer in household works, but is also a source of pride because it tells that the employer is rich enough to keep a servant.

In order to celebrate richness in India, people consume outdoor food that is considered tastier as compared to the everyday food. KFC and McDonalds are the favorite restaurants of the young lot in India. Massive consumption of fast food which only the rich in India can afford makes them accumulate kilos of fats under their skin over the years. In fact, a fat person in India would be respected because he is thought to belong to a well-off family whereas thin and skinny people are thought to come from poor backgrounds.

Physical activity in the life of rich Indians is reduced to minimal because they have indulged themselves in such activities which make them fat and work out less. It is not only the food that is the source of trouble, children of rich people spend most of their time sitting on computers playing video games. Their participation in outdoor games has greatly reduced since the evolution of computer. People want to rest and if they can pay for that, they mostly would. “It feels good giving your family a comfortable existence” (Roy cited in Lakshman).

On the other hand, the poor people in India are in constant search of jobs. They generally acquire jobs which require input of a lot of manual effort. A vast majority of poor people either become laborers or masons. They pick loads of bricks on their back all day long and shift them from