China and India: the world's most populous countries whose rapidly developing economies are shaping global politics for the 21st century. Many studies have characterised their differences. This book's approach is unusual in that the chapters are less concerned with 'lags' and 'competition', on which most comparative writing on China and India focuses, and more concerned with the structure of the differences between their trajectories.

The themes developed are international and domestic economic development, the labour force, the social consequences of demographic change, and the impact of both economy and society on the environment. Each theme is examined in a pair of chapters which give authoritative analysis of the similarities and differences between the two countries. Probing behind the obvious contrasts, the essays disclose important ways in which the two countries are alike in facing the problems produced in large, formerly agrarian societies by rapid economic development and interaction with the global economy.

China-India: Pathways of Economic and Social Development will be of interest to scholars in social sciences, political researchers, policy makers and journalists.