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 34 Table 2.3 Youth in villages and towns pay more attention to religion, caste, economic status and gender while making friends 35 Table 2.4: Young women saw a greater increase in their affinity with their locality, state and nation compared to men 38 Table 2.5: The better educated displayed an increased affinity with their locality, state and nation 38 Table 2.6: Youth in small cities witnessed greatest increase in their closeness with their city, state and country 39 Table 2.7: Spatial affinity across caste communities 39 Table 3.1: Regularity with which youth in India are doing certain religious activities, 2021 43 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 50 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 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 54 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 56 Table 3.7: Across all the major religious faiths, young women more than young men favored banning comedy on religion 57 Table 3.8: Pessimism about religious harmony is greatest among moderately educated Muslims, Muslim men and those relatively well off 59 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 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 75 Table 5.1: Professionals are mainly from upper castes whereas more labourers are from marginal castes 97 Table 5.2: With a higher level of education, youth goes for professional jobs 98 Table 5.3: In big cities, more youth are into professional jobs whereas rural youth is either engaged in agriculture or doing business 98 Table 5.4: Reasons for choosing the current employment 99 Table 5.5: Youth’s aspiration for job 99 Table 5.6: The youngest cohort is more keen to get a government job 100 Table 5.7: Permanency in jobs motivate youth to opt for government jobs over other kinds of jobs 104 Table 6.1: Women show greater anxieties than men 111 Table 6.2: Ranking of top three anxieties of the youth by level of education 112 Table 6.3: Anxiety about personal looks and body shape 113 Table 6.4: The youngest, the least emotionally distressed 117 Table 6.5: Women reported higher emotional distress than men 117 Table 6.6: Educated youth reported experiencing the symptoms of emotional distress compared to the others 118 Table 6.7: Emotional distress amongst youth by locality (%) 118 Table: 6.8: Those highly stressed are also emotionally distressed119 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 Table 7.1: Villages more likely to name ‘unemployment’ as the major problem 128 Table 7.2: Half of the Indian youth in West-Central region identify ‘unemployment’ as the major problem 128 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 7.6: Among those who have heard about the government programmes, only a quarter could give a name 142 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 Table 7.8: Ability-related factors to be the most crucial in finding a job in India 144 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

10 | Indian Youth: Aspirations and Vision for the Future