List of Tables Table 2.1: One’s thinking was the top consideration of the youth while choosing friends across age groups
34
Table 2.2: Impact of education on the considerations of the youth while choosing friends
Table 5.3: In big cities, more youth are into professional jobs whereas rural youth is either engaged in agriculture or doing business
98
34
Table 5.4: Reasons for choosing the current employment
99
Table 5.5: Youth’s aspiration for job
99
Table 2.3 Youth in villages and towns pay more attention to religion, caste, economic status and gender while making friends
Table 5.6: The youngest cohort is more keen to get a government job
100
Table 2.4: Young women saw a greater increase in their affinity with their locality, state and nation compared to men 38
Table 5.7: Permanency in jobs motivate youth to opt for government jobs over other kinds of jobs
104
Table 2.5: The better educated displayed an increased affinity with their locality, state and nation
38
Table 6.1: Women show greater anxieties than men
111
Table 2.6: Youth in small cities witnessed greatest increase in their closeness with their city, state and country
39
Table 6.2: Ranking of top three anxieties of the youth by level of education
112
Table 2.7: Spatial affinity across caste communities
39
Table 6.3: Anxiety about personal looks and body shape
113
Table 3.1: Regularity with which youth in India are doing certain religious activities, 2021
Table 6.4: The youngest, the least emotionally distressed
117
43
Table 6.5: Women reported higher emotional distress than men 117
Table 3.2: Barring young Muslim women, young women from all other religions tend to participate more in all religious activities compared to their male counterparts
Table 6.6: Educated youth reported experiencing the symptoms of emotional distress compared to the others
118
50
Table 6.7: Emotional distress amongst youth by locality (%)
118
35
Table: 6.8: Those highly stressed are also emotionally distressed 119
Table 3.3: No major age divide in observance of religious activities
50
Table 3.4: OBC Hindu youth most likely of all Hindu castecommunities to practice religious activities
51
Table 6.9: Impact of social media usage on emotional distress
120
Table 6.10: Stress and its impact on suicidal thoughts.
121
Table 6.12: Youth who have sought psychiatric help
122
Table 6.11: Family is the preferred choice for help related to mental health issues
122
Table 6.13: Those who felt suicidal were the most likely to have taken sleeping pills
123
56
Table 7.1: Villages more likely to name ‘unemployment’ as the major problem
128
Table 3.7: Across all the major religious faiths, young women more than young men favored banning comedy on religion 57
Table 7.2: Half of the Indian youth in West-Central region identify ‘unemployment’ as the major problem
128
Table 3.8: Pessimism about religious harmony is greatest among moderately educated Muslims, Muslim men and those relatively well off
Table 7.3: Young men more likely to see ‘unemployment’ as the biggest problem
129
Table 7.4: Unemployment cuts across all the communities as the biggest concern
129
Table 7.5: Other than ‘unemployment’, while the poor see ‘poverty’, the rich consider ‘education’ as the second biggest problem
129
Table 3.5: Education doesn’t make much of a difference to the tendency to consult a priest or religious leader for auspicious dates; graduates are nearly as likely to do so as non-literates Table 3.6: Muslim youth emerged as the most tolerant and liberal on the issue of allowing comedy on religion; Hindu youth second most tolerant
Table 3.9: Muslims in States with higher than national average Muslim population are far more likely to say that religious harmony will worsen in the coming five years
54
59
59
Table 3.10: Nearly half the Muslims in States with higher than national average Muslim population said that they have experienced discrimination among friends because of their religion
60
Table 4.1: Youth who preferred love marriage supported inter-caste and inter-religion marriages Table 5.1: Professionals are mainly from upper castes whereas more labourers are from marginal castes Table 5.2: With a higher level of education, youth goes for professional jobs
Table 7.6: Among those who have heard about the government programmes, only a quarter could give a name 142
75
Table 7.7: Among those who claim to have enrolled in a skill development scheme, only a little over one-third could provide the name of the scheme
143
97
Table 7.8: Ability-related factors to be the most crucial in finding a job in India
144
98
Table 7.9: Women living in cities more likely to see gender impacting the chances of getting a job
148
Table A1: Final Sample
157
Indian Youth: Aspirations and Vision for the Future | 9
