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Youth in India: challenges of employment and inclusion

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Abstract

Using the NSSO data on Employment and Unemployment, this paper examines issues of employment and unemployment among Indian youth belonging to various social and religious groups since the advent of the economic reforms in the early 1990s. It shows how an increasing proportion of the youth population is facing situations of high open unemployment during a period of high economic growth. The predominance of the poor quality of employment available to youths is also a major issue of concern, especially for those belonging to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Muslim communities. Using the Logit Model, the paper shows how education, gender, social belonging and location play significant roles in determining youths participation in labour force, education and quality of employment. The paper argues for strengthening measures to create decent employment on a large scale and for improving the education and skill levels of youths with a greater focus on those belonging to the marginalised groups of Indian society.

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Notes

  1. We consider the population aged 15–29 years as youth for our analysis in the present paper. Many programmes of the Government of India aimed at youth also cover the age group of 15–29 years.

  2. By using the UPSS approach, students working in their subsidiary capacity get included as workers. However, such number is not large, thus not affecting the overall trends.

  3. This has been largely attributed to overestimation of work as ‘unpaid family workers’ (for details see Ghose 2013).

  4. See Ghose (2013) for overestimation of workforce in 2004–2005.

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Acknowledgments

The authors express their thanks to the Conference participants for their useful comments. Special thanks are due to Ajir K. Ghose, Arjan de Haan and Arup Mitra for their valuable comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Giri Institute of Development Studies, Lucknow, India

    Rajendra P. Mamgain & Shivakar Tiwari

Authors
  1. Rajendra P. Mamgain
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  2. Shivakar Tiwari
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Correspondence to Rajendra P. Mamgain.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 10 Gender-wise activity status of youths
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Mamgain, R.P., Tiwari, S. Youth in India: challenges of employment and inclusion. J. Soc. Econ. Dev. 18, 85–100 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40847-016-0025-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40847-016-0025-8

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