‘Up to 85% employed youth in rural areas seek to change job’

• ‘State of Rural Youth Employment Report 2024’ stated between 70-85 percent of currently employed youth in rural areas desire to change their jobs

Highlights:

• The report is prepared by the Development Intelligence Unit (DUI), a joint initiative of Transform Rural India (TRI) and Sambodhi Research, and the Global Development Incubator (GDI)
• The report indicated that agriculture and self-employment, traditionally key sources of rural labour absorption, are no longer seen as aspirational career paths by many young people in rural India.
• It defines opportunity youth as those who are either unemployed or underemployed, who collectively account for 70 per cent of all rural youth in India.
• Of those currently employed rural youth who wish to change jobs, a majority preferred running small businesses, including manufacturing, retail, and trading, or seeking salaried jobs in public and private sectors.
• Among those interested in starting businesses, 90 per cent male and 50 per cent female respondents said they needed support in accessing seed capital
  • While only 10 per cent said they needed a full training course.
• The report also found that a majority of respondents did not consider agriculture aspirational in its current state, and 70 per cent of them attributed the reasons to low productivity and insufficient profits.
• Sufficient technical support to increase productivity, support for crop diversification, and access to high quality and affordable agri-inputs were key to making agriculture aspirational.
• Over 60 per cent male and 70 per cent female respondents said they preferred to find work in or close to their villages, even when income was 20-30 per cent lower, highlighting the need to significantly ramp up employment opportunities in and around rural areas.
• Based on the above, a clear insight is that young people prefer to stay within or close to their villages even with a lower income.
• At the same time, agriculture and self employment / entrepreneurship are key sources of rural labour absorption & are not in their current state aspirational employment pathways for rural youth.
• Thus, there is a clear need to address this gap to create sustainable rural labour absorption at scale.

Prelims Takeaway

• State of Rural Youth Employment Report 2024