India's youth story is a study in contradictions - of abundance and scarcity, promise and drift. As the British economist Joan Robinson once quipped, whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true. Few studies illustrate that paradox more crisply than the latest State of Working India report by Azim Premji University. Start with the headline number: 367 million young people between the ages of 15 and 29 - the largest youth population in the world, making up a third of India's working-age population.
It is an enviable demographic bulge, the kind that powered East Asia's economic miracles. Yet, beneath this statistical bounty lies more troubling arithmetic. Of these, roughly 263 million are outside the education system and constitute the potential young workforce. India, in other words, is rich in youth but poor in jobs.
There is, at first glance, reason for optimism. Over four decades, the country has transformed its educational landscape, with enrolment in high school and colleges surging. Gender gaps have narrowed, and caste barriers have reduced. However, the transition from education to employment remains stubbornly broken. Graduate unemployment is strikingly high, with nearly 40% of graduates aged 15-25 jobless, and less than 3 million of the 5 million graduates produced annually finding stable jobs.
While young workers are moving out of agriculture faster than before, the labour market remains sketchy, with jobs concentrated in sectors that do not consistently translate into improved living standards. The challenge for India is not just to create jobs but to create the right kind of jobs at scale and at speed, especially as the country approaches a demographic tipping point where the working-age share of the population will begin to decline.
It is an enviable demographic bulge, the kind that powered East Asia's economic miracles. Yet, beneath this statistical bounty lies more troubling arithmetic. Of these, roughly 263 million are outside the education system and constitute the potential young workforce. India, in other words, is rich in youth but poor in jobs.
There is, at first glance, reason for optimism. Over four decades, the country has transformed its educational landscape, with enrolment in high school and colleges surging. Gender gaps have narrowed, and caste barriers have reduced. However, the transition from education to employment remains stubbornly broken. Graduate unemployment is strikingly high, with nearly 40% of graduates aged 15-25 jobless, and less than 3 million of the 5 million graduates produced annually finding stable jobs.
While young workers are moving out of agriculture faster than before, the labour market remains sketchy, with jobs concentrated in sectors that do not consistently translate into improved living standards. The challenge for India is not just to create jobs but to create the right kind of jobs at scale and at speed, especially as the country approaches a demographic tipping point where the working-age share of the population will begin to decline.
