Two-thirds of India’s unemployed youth are educated a fraction which has doubled since 2000. As India votes, a question gnaws at its future: If education can’t get you a job, is it even worth it?
Sometimes, Shivanand Sawale rues his choices and dreams. Growing up in Dabhadi village in the Yavatmal district of western India’s Maharashtra state, the 42-year-old was so inspired by teachers around him that he wanted to become one himself. He is now among the most well-educated in his village: Sawale obtained a Master of Science and a Diploma in Education, a certificate degree meant for elementary-level school teachers.
Yet, he is often the butt of jokes among his friends. The reason? He makes less money than a landless labourer in the village. After working for 13 years in a private school, Sawale makes 7,500 rupees ($90) a month, or 250 rupees ($2.4) a day.
In the village, a day’s wage for farm labourers is anywhere between 300 and 400 rupees ($3.7-$4.7).
“My friends keep mocking me, saying [that] even uneducated workers at corner shops earn more than I do,” Sawale says.
The only consolation for Sawale is that he is not alone. India’s unemployment rate stood at 7.6 percent in March 2024. A report, released in March this year, by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Institute of Human Development (IHD) revealed that an overwhelming majority of unemployed youth were educated, with at least a secondary education. In 2000, only 35.2 percent of unemployed youth were educated; by 2022, that figure had doubled to 66 percent, the report said.
As Sawale reflects on the gulf between his education and income, his friend Ganesh Rathod walks in. Rathod, also from Dabhadi, dropped out of school. A farmer, he doubles up as an agricultural trader, and today, his finances are “stable”. He has recently renovated his house – a sparkling new attraction just off the highway that links to the village.
“In the village, those who did not educate themselves are better off because they have been able to keep their ambitions in check and be happy with what they got,” Rathod says.
“Now, look at them,” he says, pointing to Sawale. “They are educated but have to toil just like we do.”Nearly 100km (60 miles) away, in Ralegaon town, this reality defines 27-year-old Sidhant Mende’s life.
Mende is an engineer by education but this is not his job.
He works at a construction site, supervising the building of a new house, a job that requires no engineering-specific expertise, he says. For this, he gets 12,000 rupees ($145) a month, which is 400 rupees ($4.7) a day, just about what landless farm labourers make in the villages outside town.
He took the work after hunting for a job in Ralegaon that matched his qualifications. He even looked for jobs hundreds of kilometres away in big cities like Pune and Nagpur. But nothing offered him more than about 13,000 ($156) a month. “It felt like my degree didn’t matter at all,” he says. “It didn’t make sense to take up such low-paying jobs, because I would have spent all of the money I make on my expenses living in a big city like Pune or Nagpur,” he says.
