# Bangalore's IT generation — Paths

> India's software industry grew more than 40% a year in the late 1990s, almost all from exports. A Bangalore graduate with two years of experience earned about ten times average Indian income because global outsourcing happened to concentrate in that city.

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Structural luck 1990s–2000s Place

# Bangalore's IT generation

Software work paid ten times the national average because outsourcing landed there.

**10×** a two-year engineer's pay vs national average income

## What they did

Young engineers studied software, graduated, and took jobs in Bangalore. Many were the first in their families to enter the global labour market.

## What they did not choose

English-language education, a large engineering pool, low wages, and export policy made Bangalore the landing zone. The Independent reported that a graduate with two years' experience earned 20,000–24,000 rupees a month against a national average of about 10,070 rupees a year. The same training in a city without the export boom produced a different life.

## Figures

- India software industry growth, 1994–1999: over 40% a year, against 6.6% for the whole economy (Stanford King Center).

- Bangalore graduate with two years' experience: Rs 20,000–24,000 a month, about 10× the national average (The Independent).

- The city created an estimated 500 dollar millionaires through stock options (The Independent).

- Bangalore's population grew from 1.5 million to 5 million in six years during the boom.

## Limit

Studying software is a choice. Being born where a country's language and export policy made one city the outsourcing capital is not. This records a frontier arriving where people already lived.

## Sources

- [The Independent — Bangalore, Silicon Valley of the sub-continent](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/dateline-bangalore-silicon-valley-of-the-subcontinent-1082556.html)

- [Stanford King Center — Bangalore: The Silicon Valley of Asia](https://kingcenter.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj16611/files/media/file/91wp_0.pdf)

- [LA Times — Indian city rides tech euphoria (2004)](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-jun-30-fi-bang30-story.html)

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