Rickshaw Arithmetic

My first journey to Dhaka, Bangladesh is nearing its completion and soon I’ll be landing in snow covered and frigid Columbus, Ohio. But today, while I’m still in Dhaka, I want to share with you some interesting socioeconomic rickshaw arithmetic. You’ll have to bear with my assumptions, but humor me, please.

In the metro Dhaka area there are approximately 12.8 million people (according to Wikipedia), let’s assume that half of those people are male. Every rickshaw driver I’ve seen in almost 2 months has been male, so I think it is a fair assumption. Let’s also assume that the ages of those 6.4 million males are distributed evenly from ages 1 to 60 (60 is the average life expectance of a male in Bangladesh). Most rickshaw drivers are between the ages of 16 and 35 (based solely on my observations and conversations with these gentlemen); I know I’m stretching here, but just go with me.

So what does all this mean? Well based on a recent number I read, there are approximately 500,000 rickshaw drivers in Dhaka. That means that 23.4% of the working males, ages 16-35, are contributing to society by peddling a rickshaw. Even if my math is dramatically off the mark, assign a significant margin of error and the number is staggering.

Now ask yourself, with the proper education and the “luxuries” we have access to in the developed world, how many of these men should have been engineers, doctors, poets, teachers, or consultants in the energy industry. Now imagine a nation with gender equality and think about the societal contributions that would be recognized as human capital is maximized.

I’ve discussed these thoughts with a few people prior to writing this blog and some have said I’ve painted a pretty bleak picture. I however, argue that there is a very bright future for all of us.

For me it is a simple reminder that the world has come a long way; and we have a long way to go.

Until tomorrow…     -bag