Mumbai: Studies on urbanisation and migration from rural to urban India shows that to the young people living in cities the inequality is palpable, visible everyday and affects their life choices, says a UN report.
The sprawl and glaring inequality characterise cities in India as they do in any developing country and the aspiration-reality mismatch makes for two outcomes: It may engender violence or it may produce an entrepreneurial flowering, states the report. The second more favourable outcome can be encouraged with the availability of resources, support and opportunities for skill development.
These and several key findings are a part of the UN-Habitat research report, “The State of the Urban Youth India 2013: Employment, Livelihood, Skills,” which has been developed by IRIS Knowledge Foundation and brought out by Narotam Sekhsaria Foundation.
It addressed the current status of youth in urban India through a focus of health, politics, law, jobs, education, gender, migration and other areas of opportunities in the country.
Every third person in urban India is a youth. In less than a decade from now, India, with a median age of 29 years will be the youngest nation in the world.
There are large numbers of working population between the ages of 15-59 that will be generating incomes sufficient to share the state’s burden in supporting those that cannot yet do so. India could take advantage of the “demographic” dividend resulting from demographic transition over this decade potentially contributing to economic growth.
To address the needs, challenges and employment opportunities of the youth, the report suggests that each state needs to develop and put into action a youth policy.
For instance, in the informal economy which employs 90 per cent of the workforce and accounts for 50 per cent of the national products, only 11.5 per cent had received or were receiving any training, whether formal or informal. Only a third of these had received formal training.
The largest share of youth with formal skills was in Kerala, 15.5 per cent, followed by Maharashtra, 8.3 per cent, Tamil Nadu, 7.6 per cent, Himachal, 5.6 per cent, and Gujarat 4.7 per cent. The six states of southern and western India, a continuous zone, accounted for 63 per cent of all formally trained people. These are also the states with more industry, higher levels of education and training opportunities—which eventually offer better job openings. Interestingly, the report also indicates that there is greater youth interest in politics.
However, greater participation in election related activities does not translate into larger voter turnout. The urban youth is politically oriented, but still not politically very active, and a few steps away from being an active political community.
