We are nearing 2030 and it holds significance as India’s working-age population share will begin to decline after 2030.
APU Warning About Dwindling Window to Convert Youth Bulge Into Economic Gain
This is the reason behind the pace of job creation in the coming decades and it is critical to ensure that the demographic dividend translates into an economic one, said Azim Premji University in a report released on March 17.
Besides this, the report, titled ‘State of Working India 2026’ mentioned, “Young people are entering into a labour market that is challenging.”
Moving ahead, the report talks about graduate unemployment among the 15- to 29-year-olds remains high–nearly 40% among the 15- to 25-year-olds, and 20% among the 25- to 29-year-olds; and, only a small share secure stable salaried jobs within a year of graduation.
Further adding, “While recent discussions have raised concerns about the advent of Artificial Intelligence and its potential impact on entry-level salaried employment, as of yet, its full effects remain uncertain. What is not in doubt though, is that the last half decade has not been one in which salaried employment has been generated in adequate numbers, despite some notable successes.”
Concerns About Drop in Male Tertiary Enrolment
It appears that the post-Covid period India’s employed population has increased from 490 million to 572 million, with employment rates rising from 71 to 74 percent for men and from 26 to 34 percent for women, between 2021-22 and 2023-24, according to the APU.
Interestingly, the majority of these employment creations have been in agriculture as out of the 83 million jobs added between 2021-22 and 2023-24, 40 million have been in agriculture, in that women accounting for a large share (38 million), as per the report.
“The number of women in own-account self-employment has seen a nearly four-fold increase since 2017. Self-employment earnings among women and salaried earnings (for men and women) have largely stagnated. Given uneven economic development across the country, migration has emerged as an important mechanism among the youth to access employment,” the report said.
On the topic of education, this report talks about the youth education levels as they have increased significantly over four decades, especially among women.
Coming to the India’s tertiary enrolment rate which is 28% as comparable to countries with similar per capita incomes, it highlights that there has been a drop in male tertiary enrolment.
Besides this there has been a drop in the share of young men in education from 38 percent in 2017 to 34 percent in late 2024.
This is a large share which is citing the need to support household incomes as reason for their withdrawal, as per the report.
The report further highlights that higher education has become increasingly democratised but financial barriers remain.
The share of students in tertiary education who belong to the poorest households increased from 8 percent to 15 percent for the period between 2007 and 2017.
There is a need for expanding adequate salaried employment opportunities to meet the aspirations and capabilities of a highly educated workforce stated the report.
In case we are looking into the creation of exact number of salaried jobs, it will depend on different assumptions made on the structure of the labour market, for instance, if we prioritise absorbing a larger share of graduate women into the workforce, that would entail creating a greater number of jobs than are currently available at the status quo, the report said.
The report reckons integrating school and vocational curricula to bridge education and skills gaps and enhance employability.
It will also help in taking care of concerns around lower social prestige of vocational education itself, and position vocational education as a path of upward social mobility instead of reducing it merely to a fallback option.
