Opinion | India’s Gen Z Needs A Door

The young people at the barricades can see the economy is growing. They are asking why the door in front of them is shut

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This autumn, the leaked BPSC paper brought young people onto the streets of Patna; students in Mumbai followed, and water cannons met them. India is not Nepal or Bangladesh, where such protests toppled governments. But the global pattern is the same: a student grievance becomes a national crisis when established political forces attach themselves to it. Those forces seek regime change. Whether that opens any pathway for the young is another question. The answer lies in the labour market, not the street.

The first-job bottleneck

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Youth unemployment is 9.9 per cent. Among young graduates it is 22.7 per cent, and among graduate women 29.4. Graduates make up 17 per cent of young Indians and 56 per cent of unemployed youth; among unemployed young women, three in four hold a degree. Of unemployed young graduates, 91 per cent have never held a job. The problem is entry. For most, an examination is the only route in, and when a paper leaks, a year goes with it, and so does faith.

Unemployment alone rarely brings a generation into the street. The moment young people conclude the route is rigged, they move from questioning a system’s fairness to questioning its legitimacy. A state that still commands trust should spend it before it is tested. The anger is about fairness; the vulnerability underneath is economic, and neither agitation nor policing can reach it.

The women who never reach the queue

Young women are the missing half of India’s educated workforce, and the unemployment rate hides them: 56 per cent of young graduate women are outside the labour force altogether, against 14 per cent of graduate men. In Gujarat, half of young graduate women are employed; in Bihar, fewer than one in ten. Childcare and work near home have to be part of the answer, not an afterthought.

1.Overall youth unemployment in India is 9.9 per cent, rising to 22.7 per cent among young graduates and 29.4 per cent among graduate women.

Overall youth unemployment in India is 9.9 per cent, rising to 22.7 per cent among young graduates and 29.4 per cent among graduate women.

2.Workplaces with fewer than ten workers hold 73 per cent of young people's non-farm jobs, where salaried youth earn a median of Rs 10,000 a month.

Workplaces with fewer than ten workers hold 73 per cent of young people's non-farm jobs, where salaried youth earn a median of Rs 10,000 a........

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