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2024 | Buch

Introductory Kapitel lesen Erstes Kapitel lesen

Youth in Indian Labour Market

Issues, Challenges and Policies

herausgegeben von: Arup Mitra

Verlag: Springer Nature Singapore

Buchreihe : India Studies in Business and Economics

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

This book addresses labour market participation issues of youth in India, and follows an inter-disciplinary approach. It carries out both quantitative and qualitative assessments for an in-depth understanding of these issues. It collates a wide range of concerns both from supply and demand side, and instead of reflecting on the empirical questions only, the book reflects on various analytical questions as well. Some other challenges being discussed here are inadequacy of skill and compulsion to participate in the labour market, concentration in activities with excess supplies of labour, unrecognised work experience, lack of upward mobility, and working with information asymmetry. Caste and gender disadvantages are an instrumental part of the book. Problems of educated and uneducated youth are quite different and the book analyses them separately. Besides, it refers to a wide range of issues relating to occupational flexibility. It also discusses skill imparting institutions and themajor lacuna associated with their functioning. Social unrest and threats to the prospects of future growth in the absence of adequate youth employment are some of the economic and political issues which the book covers. Unraveling the threads of the concerns mentioned above, the book finally comes up with policy suggestions. It is a great resource for researchers, industry watchers, and policy makers who are interested in inclusive and sustainable growth.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter
Introductory
Abstract
Youth employment has always been a matter of concern as many individuals participate in the job market at a young age much before acquiring enough skill and experience. Given the financial constraints and the compulsions to pursue job search a large majority of the youth end up in low productivity activities in the informal sector and/or formal sector activities in informal capacity. The income outcomes are naturally poor and the prospects for acquiring further skill in the current job are almost dim. The kind of activities they are engaged in does not unfold any opportunity for accessing on-the-job training. Hence, the scope of regularization or any upward mobility is rather meagre. Besides, the capital-intensive economic growth has given rise to a wide spectrum of problems for the young job market aspirants. In the post COVID scenario the youth has been facing severe challenges. The deceleration in demand and the lack of its revival aggravated the labour market outcomes. New types of jobs have emerged (i.e., platform workers) but with new challenges. Besides, whether the new jobs are able to compensate for the job losses is an important question to be investigated. What job market securities and safety-nets are available and in what ways the vulnerability of the youth can be reduced need detailed analysis. The labour market deregulations, the weakening of the bargaining power of the young labour market participants and the absence of adequate employment programmes are some of the major lacuna. The proposed volume aims at focusing on a number of issues relating to labour market participation of the youth. The inadequacy of skill and the compulsion to participate in the labour market, concentration in activities with excess supplies of labour, unrecognized work experience, lack of upward mobility and working with information asymmetry are some of the issues that the volume will be reflecting on. The caste and gender disadvantages will of course be an instrumental part of the volume. Whether certain caste categories and young women in particular, are at a greater disadvantageous position than the others, is an important line of enquiry. Besides, it will refer to a wide range of issues relating to occupational flexibility. The skill imparting institutions and the major lacuna associated with their functioning are noteworthy. Social unrest and threats to the prospects of future growth in the absence of adequate youth employment are some of the economic and political issues which cannot be ignored. The problems of the educated and uneducated youth are quite different and they need to be analysed separately. The youth tribulations due to the lack of economic growth and in the face of rising inequality and inadequate labour market opportunities warrant an in-depth analysis. The volume is also expected to cover the policy issues. Which policies hold better prospects for success and how the ongoing policies need to be revived are some of the important considerations.
Arup Mitra

International and National Perspective

Frontmatter
A Global Perspective on Youth Employment Challenges: What Have We Learned Over the Last Two Decades?
Abstract
Promoting youth employment has become a crucial priority for policymakers worldwide, particularly in developing countries where governments seek to provide opportunities for a youthful population and take advantage of the well-recognized ‘demographic dividend’, which is critical for accelerating growth and prosperity. However, young people continue to experience much higher unemployment rates, usually around three times higher than for older adults, and are much more vulnerable to increases in unemployment during crises as witnessed in recent years. More concerning is that crises can have long-term effects for young people in their chances of finding decent employment. A more comprehensive perspective on the situation facing young people in labour markets is provided by looking at other indicators, including the share of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET rate), which went up during the COVID-19 crisis. In terms of employment quality, more than three out of four of the world’s young workers are informally employed with young people also overrepresented in working poverty and less-protected forms of work. Against this backdrop, this chapter presents the latest global and regional trends across key labour market indicators that highlight both progress and challenges for young people, with a specific focus on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on youth employment. An important finding is the divergence between low- and high-income countries. The chapter then explores policy responses, including the latest evidence on the effectiveness of active labour market programmes, before highlighting the different dimensions needed to adequately address youth employment challenges, especially in developing countries.
Sher Singh Verick
Labour Market Profile of the Youth: Role of Education, Caste, and Economic Background
Abstract
This study based on the employment–unemployment surveys and the periodic labour force surveys reflects on the labour market outcomes of the youth. It pursues a detailed analysis of various labour market indicators over time and brings out the vulnerability of the youth belonging to younger age cohorts with relatively lower educational attainments and poor socioeconomic background. Further, the rural youth are susceptible to greater hardships in the labour market compared to their urban counterparts. On the whole, youth are mostly employed in activities which do not offer any stability or social security. Such transient jobs may provide short-term support to income augmentation at the household level though in the long run it does not raise the employability or capability from the point of view of accessing stable jobs. Finally, the study reflects on important policy implications. Imparting quality education to the youth with a practical and job market orientation would be useful for improved outcomes. However, education also tends to reduce the probability of being outside the labour force, implying that demand must improve concurrently to reduce the excess supplies.
Manik Kumar, Arup Mitra
Youth and Challenges in Contemporary World of Work in India
Abstract
India has one of the largest youth populations in the world; her population aged 15–29 years increased from 26.6% of in 1991 to the projected figure of 27.3% in 2021. Although this does offer an opportunity to reap the demographic dividend, it is fast closing and the current ‘youth bulge’ is likely to be available for only a decade or so. Given India’s demographic transition, it hardly needs emphasis that active engagement of ‘youth’ is absolutely critical for any decent development strategy aimed at achieving sustainable and inclusive growth. Yet, even taking a long-term view, not only have the youth unemployment rates remained far above that of the all-India figures, but there have been other persistent disadvantages which severely hinder their transition from school to work. As widely acknowledged in the literature, a large proportion of them end up either un- or underemployed or in working poverty being employed in informal services and working under precarious conditions. These labour market outcomes for the youth, however, need to be placed within the broader macroeconomic architecture and the subsequent long-term structural crisis that has plagued India during much of the neo-liberal regime. In fact, the structural transformation, in particular has been one of a low and even declining employment elasticity of output; a trend which has only intensified in the recent years even prior to the pandemic. From the political economy perspective, this reflects an obvious outcome of contemporary ‘spontaneous capitalism’, which has an inherent tendency of labour repulsion. With low labour absorption on one hand, and a large pool of young people, i.e., the new labour market entrants given the current ‘youth bulge’ in the country, on the other, the issues pertaining to youth employment challenge have become crucial at the present juncture. Their employment question has become even more relevant today, as the youth faced an unequal burden of the COVID-19 induced economic crisis. Against this backdrop, the chapter looks at the various current employment and unemployment challenges confronting the youth (15–29 years) in India. In particular, emphasis has been on highlighting the particular vulnerabilities of the youth in India’s world of work relative to the older age groups (30+). The gender and social-group-based inequities have also been examined in this regard while focusing on select dimensions of participation rates and other rates of labour underutilization, employment distribution, quality of jobs, etc., across rural–urban areas.
Praveen Jha, Preksha Mishra
Employment Vulnerability Among Young Indian Workers
Abstract
We examine the labour market vulnerability faced by Indian youth using high-frequency panel data from the Consumer Pyramid Households Survey conducted by CMIE. Our analysis demonstrates that youth are severely vulnerable to frequent job loss, leading them to become unemployed or leave the labour market. Even if they remain employed, they are susceptible to downward mobility in job quality. Using multinomial logit regression, we examine the impact of several socioeconomic and demographic characteristics that may impact young people’s labour market vulnerability and, in turn, their earning potential and household well-being. Empirical findings suggest widespread prevalence of labour market vulnerability among Indian youth. However, there is a considerable heterogeneity in it, with youth from rural backgrounds, females, and those from lower socioeconomic strata being more exposed to income and employment vulnerability. Additionally, young people with lower education who joined the workforce at an early age are more likely to hold precarious jobs and earn lower wages. Similarly, youth from large households with many dependents and less education are more vulnerable in the job market. Our observations underscore the need for policies to enhance labour market opportunities for the youth and reduce their vulnerability to job loss and downward income and employment mobility.
Gunjan Kumari, Neha Gupta, K. Narayanan

Specific Context

Frontmatter
Status of Youth’s Employment in Uttar Pradesh: Demographic Dividend or Disaster
Abstract
The status of youth employment in Uttar Pradesh presents a complex situation that could either lead to a demographic dividend or disaster. While Uttar Pradesh has a large population of young people, which can potentially serve as a valuable resource for economic growth and development, the lack of sufficient job opportunities and low quality of education and skill training programmes have led to a high rate of unemployment. This study during the period, 2004–05 to 2019–20, noted that almost all key labour market indicators such as LFPR, WPR, UR, and NEET witnessed negative changes across gender. During 2019–20 unemployment and NEET rates for youth were 12 and 35% respectively. During the same period, the situation was worse for female youth (NEET rate 60% and UR rate 10%). As far as the quality of employment is concerned, the percentage of youth working as regular workers has increased by two times in Uttar Pradesh. We also observed, there was a significant increment in written job contracts specially for female youth. But on the other hand, social security benefits have gone down for youth in Uttar Pradesh. On the whole we found a mixed picture of the quality of employment for youth.
Manik Kumar
Post-school Experiences of the Youth: Tracing Delhi Slum Dwellers from 2007/08 to 2018
Abstract
India’s recent economic growth has not sufficiently absorbed the growth of the working-age population, particularly in employment with regular payments and social protection. In this background, this chapter examines how youth of low economic strata have experienced the labour market in their post-schooling period, using longitudinal data collected in Delhi slums over the decade from 2007/08 to 2018. The majority of young slum dwellers had higher educational levels than the older slum dwellers and experienced a greater increase in real incomes compared to the older workers. Education plays a crucial role in the earnings of young slum workers. However, the income levels of slum dwellers remain significantly lower than those of the broader population in Delhi, and the economic disparity with non-slum workers in Delhi appears to have increased over the decade. Similarly, the gender disparity in earnings among slum dwellers has not been rectified over time. Growing income disparity and gender differences in terms of work participation and earnings remain major challenges for the country.
Yuko Tsujita

Gender Focus

Frontmatter
Youth Employment in India: The Female Perspective
Abstract
In any country, youth population is the strength of the future. India is enjoying the ‘demographic dividend’ but cannot enjoy all its benefits due to faulty or inadequate manpower planning. Female work participation rate is low in India and that is also reflected in the youth segment. This paper traces the structural changes of the economy, the occupational shift from agriculture to service, and the bulging of the informal sector in the absence of any conscious employment policy, especially for the youth. Then it takes up the issue of youth employment in general and female employment in particular. Taking up the oft-discussed reasons of low female work participation, it passes on to empirical evidence from Census 2011 data. It clearly shows the bulge of female youth in agricultural and other sectors where skill is not essential at the entry point. Skill-oriented occupations especially in the urban sector take females in the age group 24–29. The pandemic and other problems in the Indian economy have led to a difficult situation where the proportion of young females in NEET has increased enormously. This calls for conscious policy decision for women, especially the younger lot.
Mahalaya Chatterjee
The Challenge of Youth Employment in India: A Gender Perspective
Abstract
Creating employment and decent jobs for youth is a global challenge, which has been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic which has hurt young people more than any other group. In this broader global context, this paper analyses quantitative and qualitative dimensions of youth employment in India from a gender lens. We find that there has been a significant reduction in labour force participation rate especially among young females in rural areas during 2012–19, which has somewhat improved in 2021–22. However, Labour force participation as well as work participation of youth is still lower than the 2011–12 level. What is more unfortunate is that the unemployment rate is increasing among youth, especially among highly educated youth and young women in urban areas. Moreover, the increasing proportion of youth with NEET (not in education, employment, and training) status (33%) is also a serious concern especially among young women who were overrepresented in this category in 2020–21. On further examination of activity status of young women with NEET status, we find that nearly 45% of such young women were involved in domestic duties in 2021–22. In the labour market, young workers were highly concentrated in self-employment activities and within such activities most young men were involved in their own account activities while most females were unpaid family workers in 2021–22. Over the years, the presence of youth in regular salaried jobs, service sector, organized sector, and formal jobs has improved. However, gains for young female workers in these categories are very small compared to gains for their male counterparts. We find that quality of regular salaried jobs has also deteriorated over the years as around 70% of youth workers had no written job contract, 56% were not entitled to paid leave, and 61% were not eligible for any social security benefits in 2021–22. These indicators clearly reveal that qualitative aspects of youth employment challenge are much more severe in India. Therefore, the paper argues for urgent policy interventions to ensure access to productive and decent jobs for all in India.
Shamim Ara

Agriculture, Climate Change and Migration

Frontmatter
Labour Productivity of Rice Crop in India’s Indo-Gangetic Plains: A Comparison Between Agriculture in Eastern and Western Regions
Abstract
Green revolution made India’s development unbalanced by building up a high performing agriculture in the highly irrigated western states of Punjab and Haryana while neglecting the water-rich eastern states of Bihar and Jharkhand. Farming being the most important employment in India, the imbalance generated migration of surplus rural manpower suffering economic distress of the east to seek employment in the western states in which agriculture created demand for labour. An analysis of agricultural production in the contemporary period 2004–05 to 2019–20 indicates that over time the transition and possibly the public attention to eastern agriculture has created an equilibrating pressure on value added and labour productivity so that potential exists for a modern digitized agriculture in the east to absorb manpower especially youth to generate value added in the state while the western states need to prepare for its own transition.
Nilabja Ghosh, Alka Singh, Mayanglambam Rajeshwor, Amritanshi Preeti
Irrigation Development and Rural Migration Nexus: Insights from Village Studies in Tamil Nadu
Abstract
The rising rural–urban migration, especially youth migration has been a composite challenge across the world particularly in India. The migration from rural to urban has declined the share of workforce employed in agriculture and in the process, it has declined agriculture's share of national income over the years. Studies in literature have documented that irrigation development has played a vital role in reducing rural—migration in India. However, such an impact is not given attention in literature at micro level. In this study, therefore, an attempt has been made to explore the impact of irrigation on rural migration using field survey data collected from the Pudukkottai district of Tamil Nadu. Descriptive analysis revealed that employment days, income and consumption expenditure of agricultural labourers were found to be relatively higher in groundwater-irrigated village followed by canal-irrigated, tank-irrigated, and rainfed villages. On the other side, the percentage of migration of agricultural labourers was reported to be higher in rainfed villages as compared to irrigated villages. The logit model analysis showed that the marginal impact of groundwater irrigation in reducing rural migration of agricultural labourers is higher as compared to canal and tank irrigation. Further, among the variables included for analysis, the coefficient of irrigation is predominantly significant, implying irrigation development reduces the migration of agricultural labourers. Therefore, the installation of groundwater irrigation, wherever needed, and the extension and improvement of micro irrigation systems need to be focused upon to increase employment opportunity, farm productivity, and income to the agricultural labourers to reduce the level of migration at a greater margin.
Susanto Kumar Beero
An Analysis of Employment Effect of Projected Clean Energy Transition in India
Abstract
Now it is a well-known fact that climate change is no longer a possibility. The whole world is experiencing the brunt of the change. Climate change is affecting agricultural labourers due to crop uncertainty. Moreover, the influx of climate refugees has seen an increase in labour force in some areas. The change in agricultural patterns also affects the industries which depend on agriculture for raw materials. Thus employment for the youth in this changing scenario is also in a state of flux. As tighter environmental regulations speak about cleaner production, the production system is going to be changed. This will lead to the shutdown of many existing production units while many others will shift their technologies. Such a change will make many jobs redundant while many new jobs will be created. The young job market aspirants must have clear sense of this change to prepare themselves for the new types of jobs created. People losing their job due to shut down of polluting units need to reskill themselves for the new types of jobs coming up using climate-friendly methods of production. Firms all over the world are now striving to get environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings. The study attempts to estimate the quantum of employment generated when the Indian economy moves more towards an era of clean energy. Thus the possibility of youth employment rises if proper skills are adopted. It is imperative that a transition towards sustainable development will essentially include renewable energy as a major source of power. This calls for more skills to be generated among the youth suitable for the renewable energy sector. In addition to that, reskilling is necessary for the workers currently engaged in the non-renewable power sector so that they can shift to the renewable sector when the situation demands so. Without a steady and concerted effort towards skill development in renewable energy technologies, a fast transition towards skill development will be halted or delayed due to a lack of skilled manpower.
Sujatra Bhattacharyya

Policy Focus

Frontmatter
Education and Labour Policy Agendas, Escalating Informality and Social Vulnerability: Mapping Domain and Historical Continuities Within Development Agendas
Abstract
For a while, India has topped the tables that classify economies according to the ‘degree’ and ‘intensity’ of their employment of informal labour. Equally, the very large proportions of the Indian workforce in vulnerable employment have been regarded as making for a distinctively Indian pattern of economic growth. Fronting the moot question, we ask: if economic planning and policy are mandated to assess economic parameters and priorities to create roadmaps for optimal and viable patterns of economic growth, surely policy analysis must also thematise how former policy choices and agendas were instrumental equally in producing subsequent structural patterns of the Indian growth story and labour market scenarios? The dependence of more than 90% of our labour force on informal employment can be read as outcomes resulting from the priorities of India’s education and labour policy between 1950 and 2000s. Drawing on quantitative, comparative and historical sources, the paper throws light on choices leading to our distinctively ‘low-road’ strategy to economic growth through a dependence of more than 90% of our labour force on informal employment. The Nehruvian imaginary of social change saw a prioritizing of higher education in the post-1947 decades. Endorsed by India’s policymakers and intellectual elite, the sustained neglect of primary education until the 2000s significantly limited the size of the entry pool seeking access to higher education. However, it had major implications for swelling the ranks of those in informal/precarious employment. Alongside from the late 1980s onwards, in contrast to its previous endorsement of tripartism and protection of organized labour rights, Indian labour policy discourse has sought to legitimize a deregulation of labour laws. Despite the traumatic migrant labour crisis of 2020, there have been persistent calls from industry lobbies to further reduce ‘over-rigidity’ of ‘unconducive’ labour laws. Foregrounding such linkages, this paper argues that the importance of tracing such trajectories, shifts, underlying priorities, and implications across key fields of social policy as central to defining the indices of well-being and precarity for the Indian workforce.
Veena Naregal
Vocational Education and Training for Youth in India
Abstract
In India, in general, there is a poor perception regarding vocational education and skill training (VET) and the youth prefer to attend general courses. In this paper the vocational education and vocational training scenario in India, its various components, the segments where uptake of VET is relatively more, types of training, etc. are examined. Vocational education imparted in schools is not preferred by students, and at present participation in vocational education remains very low. In the area of vocational training, the share of formally trained youth has remained low and has hardly increased between 2011–12 and 2021–22, while the informal training uptake has increased. However the formal vocational training access among the youth is concentrated in the higher expenditure quintile, and among those with higher education levels. The youth from under-privileged backgrounds seem unable to access formal vocational training. However a gender difference is observed in that males dominate informal training uptake, but women have a higher likelihood of accessing formal training. Therefore, as a policy instrument for skilling women and balancing their disadvantages in entering the labour market, their formal training access needs expansion. The paper also looks at informal vocational training, which remains the main mode of vocational training for youth in India, despite being associated often with low productivity and remuneration. Moreover, informal training uptake has been on the rise among the youth. Considering some in-depth studies on informal training, its advantages and disadvantages, a question is posed whether there should be a fresh look at this sector in India.
Tanuka Endow, Siddharth Dhote
Metadaten
Titel
Youth in Indian Labour Market
herausgegeben von
Arup Mitra
Copyright-Jahr
2024
Verlag
Springer Nature Singapore
Electronic ISBN
978-981-9703-79-1
Print ISBN
978-981-9703-78-4
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-0379-1

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