Three years ago, while waiting for a follow up consultation in a hospital in Delhi, a woman who was not part of the hospital staff approached Bhalla—she asked her to provide a blood sample and sign a consent sheet to take part in a gastrointestinal clinical trial. But she did not explain why.

Bhalla asked for the information sheet or details of the study, but that only annoyed the woman, who she assumed was a trial coordinator, she said. Since no one came forward to explain the study, she refused to participate.

Experts say Bhalla’s experience isn’t a one-off occurrence. This is even as India’s regulatory framework covering clinical trials was significantly strengthened after the Supreme Court’s intervention in 2013, and subsequent amendments were made to the Drugs & Cosmetics Rules.

New rules include provisions for compensation to trial participants, and recording consent on video, especially among vulnerable populations. These, and mandatory registration of ethics committees with the central licensing authority (CDSCO) have improved safeguards for participants, said Poonam Bagai, founder and chairman, CanKids…KidsCan, which also hosts the Pediatric Cancer Research Institute (pCRI), an initiative focused on patient-centred paediatric oncology research.

However, “the video recording of the consent process of vulnerable trial participants isn’t happening,” said Amulya Nidhi of the Swasthya Adhikar Manch, a not-for-profit working in the clinical trials space.

Bagai said the consent process still often lacks true comprehensibility, limiting informed decision-making. “Consent forms may exist, but the key question is whether patients and families genuinely understand what participation means,” she said, noting that low health literacy remains a significant barrier in India. “Consent or assent for paediatric populations is another important area to address.”

Studies such as this conducted among rural adolescents and this among hypertensive adults show that anywhere between 60% and 75% of the population is insufficiently informed.

“Many patients who participate in clinical trials in India aren’t aware that they could suffer an adverse drug reaction, contrary to getting better, nor are they aware of their rights in such an eventuality,” said Nidhi.

Further, “the Supreme Court has recommended the establishment of an apex committee to approve new clinical trials, and for those approvals to be based on a risk-benefit-analysis, on the innovation quotient of the new therapy and its usefulness versus existing therapies, and on the unmet medical needs of the country. Still, no such apex committee meeting has happened; and trials are being independently approved,” said Nidhi.

As India moves to expand clinical trials, with the 2026-27 budget allocating Rs 10,000 crore over five years to strengthen biopharma and establish 1,000 accredited new clinical trial sites, there is a pressing need to improve patient awareness and ensure their rights are upheld.

To successfully scale clinical trials, a mindset shift from ‘guinea pig’ to ‘aware patient’ and the promotion of active patient participation is key, said Pooja Sharma, CEO, APAR Health, an organisation working to promote patient-centric research.

Awareness must to eliminate vulnerability among potential participants

Low health literacy can make families more vulnerable, especially at emotionally difficult moments such as a serious diagnosis like cancer, Bagai said.

“At the same time, limited understanding may also prevent families from considering participation in legitimate research that could offer meaningful treatment opportunities,” she added.

National level policies and programmes are seen as the best way to promote health literacy but so far these have failed in delivering health information to underserved populations, according to an analysis of health inclusivity by the Economist.

“The need of the hour is widespread public awareness initiatives in urban as well as rural India, something like the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) does to create awareness in the financial sector,” said Alishan Naqvee, one of India’s leading healthcare lawyers.

“Such campaigns need to be carefully crafted, as we are a large population with a huge disease burden,” said Naqvee. “A campaign shall not discourage participation in clinical trials, just as the RBI’s campaigns do not discourage people from opening bank accounts.”

In particular, awareness campaigns must target the most vulnerable people. For instance, “many trials are conducted in tribal areas, where there is a lack of health facilities and services, among less educated people,” said Vinod Shende, a health rights activist from Pune, Maharashtra. “Investigators organise free treatment camps, and illiterate, poor people get taken in.”

Alongside potential participant awareness, Sharma said there is a need for more aware researchers, who must understand “patient centricity”, and more aware clinicians who must be “aware of research as a care option”.

Subject recruitment still a grey area

India’s regulatory framework still doesn’t lay down clear guidelines for the recruitment process. “In India,” Nidhi said, “patients are usually enrolled from hospital out-patient clinics, unlike in the West where the trial is advertised and details such as the ethics committee members and other bits of information are clearly stated.”

Greater transparency in recruitment extends to informed consent. “Patients must be informed of the possibility of an adverse drug reaction, and that they have the right to pull out of the trial and be compensated for a loss,” said Nidhi, stressing that “this still doesn’t happen as it should.”

In the case of early phase clinical trials, unexpected adverse effects or even benefits are unknown at the time of designing the trial, and hence not mentioned in the consent documents. But patients must be made to understand this.

In August 2025, a participant of a trial for cardiac failure drugs who was promised Rs 20,000 for partaking was allegedly threatened by the company conducting the trial in Hyderabad, when he complained of severe chest pain and enormous worry because a fellow participant had succumbed to similar complaints a few days previously. Contrary to being treated, the participant was given Rs 500 and referred to a government hospital.

“It’s important to observe how consent functions on the ground,” said Preetisha Choudhury, a scholar researching the regulation of informed consent in clinical trials at the Department of Law, North-Eastern Hill University in Meghalaya’s Shillong. “In many instances, patients may have signed a consent form but not truly understood the purpose of the trial, the risks involved, and their right to withdraw.”

“Socio-economic vulnerability and therapeutic misconceptions can affect [a] patient’s understanding of a trial,” she added.

Therapeutic misconceptions refer to patients anticipating better care through the trial than existing treatment, and being attracted to participate in trials because of the promise of free treatment. Intense patient counselling is crucial to minimise ‘therapeutic misconceptions’, concluded this Tata Memorial Centre study of cancer trials.

Finance administration missing from regulatory framework

An additional affidavit to a public interest litigation first filed in the Supreme Court in February 2012, by the Swasthya Adhikar Manch in April 2025, alleging investigator impropriety at the Sheth VS General Hospital, Ahmedabad, a municipal-run hospital, prompted a probe by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI).

A preliminary report by a five-member team of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) confirmed financial irregularities in 58 clinical trials being conducted in the hospital, involving more than 500 patients.

About 15 doctors including the hospital’s medical superintendent were found to have diverted Rs 1.87 crore to their personal accounts over the previous four years.

Eight contractual doctors were dismissed and one faculty member was suspended.

A member of the AMC’s investigating team, on the condition of anonymity, told IndiaSpend that he blamed gaps in the regulatory framework for this scandal.

“Our existing regulatory framework adequately addresses the clinical aspects but it omits the financial and administrative aspects of a trial,” he said. “We need a policy covering the disbursements of funds, essentially, which stipulates how the trial budget should be disbursed—how much the principal investigator will get, how much the co-investigator will get, how much the hospital will get, and so on.”

“We studied the agreements of 62 clinical trials being conducted at the Sheth VS General Hospital, and insofar as the patients-related part was concerned, everything was in order,” he continued. “But the disbursements under different expenditure heads varied for each, which isn’t appropriate. We need a standard, fair policy for clinical trial budget disbursements across India.”

“Disbursements to the hospital supporting the trial, to cover the overheads, must also be clearly mentioned in the policy; it shouldn’t be left to the discretion of the institution,” said the investigating team member, adding that “Sheth VS General Hospital’s share hadn’t been disbursed.”

A senior officer of the AMC reportedly told the Times of India in 2025 that the investigating DCGI team didn’t recall “conducting routine inspections at the VS Hospital clinical trial site over the past four years”.

“It appears that the DCGI is short of regulators to monitor trials across the country,” said Nidhi.

As 1,000 new accredited trial sites come online, Bagai pointed out that the government will need to strengthen monitoring. “Oversight should be risk-based and enabling, ensuring ethical standards without discouraging responsible research.”

“Expansion is not inherently problematic,” said Choudhury. “But without careful monitoring, public trust may suffer.”

IndiaSpend has reached out to the health ministry and the AMC for comment on financial irregularities and trial monitoring lapses. The AMC directed us to individual officers but has not provided a response on record. The health ministry did not respond to queries at the time of publishing. We will update this story when we receive responses.

Ethics committee lapses bear adversely upon trials

Every institution conducting trials must have an ethics committee in place to review consent documents, monitor the conduct of clinical trials and even halt their progress if irregularities are identified in their conduct, and safeguard participant’s rights.

Ideally, the institution should appoint a third-party autonomous ethics committee composed of institutional representatives, community representatives, local health not-for-profits and public health experts.

Bagai added that patient and caregiver representation within ethics review and oversight processes is important, though structured participation remains limited in practice.

It’s also important that the ethics committee doesn’t report to the institution, said Nidhi. “Only then can it provide the right checks and balances.”

In the Sheth VS General Hospital, the trials were being overseen by an external private ethics committee.

Now that the budget has tabulated plans to increase infrastructure and accredited sites to strengthen research capacity, the focus must also be on growing ethical safeguards at the same pace, said Choudhury.

Accreditation for ethics committees on the lines of accreditation for hospitals (National Accreditation Board for Hospitals, or NABH domestically and the Joint Commission International, or JCI, globally), may be an appropriate safeguard.

“Our ethics committee (IEC-3, ACTREC, Tata Memorial Centre) is registered with the DCGI as well as the Department of Health Research and is one of the very few ethics committees in India to be accredited by international agencies such as Strategic Initiative for Developing Capacity for Ethical Review (SIDCER),” said Sachin Punatar, member secretary, IEC-3 (ethics committee), ACTREC, Tata Memorial Centre, Navi Mumbai.

With the planned expansion of clinical trial sites, Nidhi proposed that the government appoint a representative for each, possibly as a member of the ethics committee.

Punatar said that in order to maintain the highest standards, new trial sites and newly registered ethics committees should be closely monitored until they acquire adequate experience.

Recommendations for a healthier clinical trial scenario

Clinical trials are considered as one of the best ways to advance science and improve patient outcomes. “India needs more clinical trials, particularly in oncology where survival outcomes remain uneven across geographies and innovation is critical,” Bagai said. Incidentally, of thousands of registered clinical trials running in India, oncology is among the fastest growing segments.

In oncology, there has been a tremendous improvement in patient outcomes through decades of research, said Punatar. “Trials to test new medicinal products in patients who have exhausted all standard therapies may offer a ray of hope for patients who may not have any further treatment options.”

However, nothing has been said so far about the kind of trials to be run at the 1,000 new trial sites, nor the kinds of sites to be promoted, said Nidhi.

“Clarity would help patients’ rights groups mobilise adequate support,” he said. “Trials should take place in public institutions.”

To strengthen accountability, Shende underscored the need for a speedy, easily accessible grievance redressal mechanism, helpline and online portal for patients participating in the trial, and for action to be taken on these complaints within a specific timeframe.

“Faster and more accessible grievance mechanisms would strengthen accountability,” agreed Choudhury, while also underscoring the need for “a more contextual consent model that adapts communication to participants’ realities”.

Additionally, “if India is investing Rs 10,000 crore in research infrastructure, some of that investment should also support patient education and patient-advocacy capacity building,” said Bagai.

Global frameworks such as the US FDA’s Patient-Focused Drug Development initiative and the European Medicines Agency’s patient engagement framework show that patient involvement improves trial design, retention and ethical robustness. So, “government engagement with initiatives such as PACER, which build the capacity of patient advocates to participate in research design, patient-led research, and public education, will be vital to creating a more ethical and patient-centred clinical research ecosystem,” Bagai said.

“For India to become a global clinical research hub, the focus must extend beyond laboratories and trial sites to building informed patients and informed communities.”

We welcome feedback. Please write to respond@indiaspend.org. We reserve the right to edit responses for language and grammar.

“The elephants move so quietly,” says 40-year-old Javed Sheikh, a member of the Hathi Mitra Dal, “no one even realises when they enter another area.” The herd they are looking for is locally called the Gautami Dal—two male and eight female elephants, with five calves—known to have damaged houses in the area in December 2024.

Shrinking elephant habitats and corridors for their movement owing to deforestation and urbanisation have led to higher rates of human-elephant conflicts, researchers say. In this context, Hathi Mitra Dal steps in. It is an initiative started by the state government in 2018 to manage human-elephant conflict better. In states such as West Bengal and Assam, this initiative is known as ‘Gaja Mitra.’

The Dharamjaigarh division includes six forest ranges: Chhal, Dharamjaigarh, Boro, Kapu, Lailunga, and Bakaruma. Sheikh and six other volunteers work closely with forest officials across these ranges to track elephant movement and alert nearby villages when herds move close to human settlements.

The forest here is interspersed with farms, and local farmers often use an electrical fence to protect their crops—a practice that can endanger the lives of elephants. In the last five years, 580 elephants died across the country, the government told Parliament in February 2026. Nearly three in four of these were from electrocution.

Between the years 2000 and 2023, Dharamjaigarh forest division recorded 33 elephant deaths, all due to electrocution, the highest mortality in the state, according to a March 2025 report by the Wildlife Institute of India and Project Elephant under the forest ministry. During the same period in the division, 135 people died and 20 were injured in elephant encounters.

The state recorded 218 elephant deaths in this period, 39% (84) were attributed to anthropogenic causes. Further, there were 737 human deaths and 91 injuries in 828 incidents of human-elephant conflicts.

And it is not just Chhattisgarh. In neighbouring Jharkhand, 474 people have died in such conflicts just in five years to 2024, as IndiaSpend reported in December 2024.

An October 2025 estimate, based on DNA-based genetic mark-recapture, puts India’s elephant population at 22,446 elephants. Of these, 451 are in Chhattisgarh. The estimate said that the methodological change means the numbers are not directly comparable with earlier estimates. In 2017, India was estimated to have 27,312 elephants, we had reported.

Elephant herds migrate 350-500 sq km annually through swathes of forests and grasslands known as elephant corridors, which link their habitats, we had explained in November 2018. As of 2023, India had 150 elephant corridors across 15 states, according to a report by the Wildlife Institute of India. About 40% of them had seen increased elephant use. Chhattisgarh has nine identified corridors.

A study in northern Chhattisgarh also found widespread crop damage linked to elephant movement in forest–agriculture landscapes. Researchers recorded 363 incidences of crop foraging by elephants from 60 villages and settlements between February 2019 and February 2020.

Habitat decline, fragmentation leading to conflicts

Historically, elephants were present in northern Chhattisgarh but became locally extinct in the early 20th century, a March 2025 report of the Wildlife Institute of India says. Their return began in the late 20th century, with 18 elephants recorded in 1988, rising to 247 by 2017. The movement is linked to forest degradation in neighbouring Odisha and Jharkhand due to mining, logging, industrialisation and encroachments, which has disrupted traditional movement routes.

Within Chhattisgarh, forests are highly fragmented, especially in the north and central regions, the report noted. Between 2000 and 2024, forest cover declined by 7%, with land converted mainly into cropland (22%) and built-up areas (6%), alongside rising urbanisation. These changes are pushing elephants out of forests and into shared landscapes, increasing the risk of conflict.

“The forest landscape in Dharamjaigarh is fragmented and under increasing pressure from development activities such as the Bharatmala Pariyojana road construction, railway expansion, and mining,” Siddhant Jain, a wildlife biologist with Nova Nature Welfare Society who studies human-elephant conflict across north Chhattisgarh, said. This shrinking habitat, he explained, is pushing elephants towards farms. “Even a relatively small population of elephants is now leading to intense and repeated conflict because the habitat can no longer support their needs.”

An elephant help centre in Dharamjaigarh. A forest guard is present 24x7 to attend to the concerns of villagers.

One morning in 2023, Manwari Bareth and her husband went to collect mahua seeds near their village, Bogiya, about 7 km from the Chhal range. “We were walking towards the forest area at around 6.30 a.m., and picking seeds along the way,” Bareth said. “That’s when we heard a sound. My husband said it must be a falling twig. But in just a moment, we saw the elephant in front of us. We both ran in different directions, and the elephant followed my husband.”

Her children, villagers and the forest department gathered to search for him. “Around 9.00 a.m., they found his body. His chest and shoulder crushed, his body was in a twisted position,” said Bareth, a mother to three sons.

Her family is now afraid to venture out and collect mahua seeds. They still go occasionally, but never alone. “My elder one [age 28] is married and works at an itta bhatti [brick kiln]. The other two [aged 21 and 18] are unemployed; they are looking for jobs,” she said.

Over the years, hundreds of families here have faced loss—of lives, crops, and livelihoods. For many, forests are not just landscapes but a source of survival. Villagers sell oil extracted from the mahua seeds. Even a single productive tree can bring in around Rs 6,000 per household in a month.

The perils in the dark

“Our work is to manage both the elephants and the villagers,” Sheikh said.

In Dharamjaigarh, farmers are increasingly growing crops such as maize and watermelon, which are particularly attractive to elephants. Large fields of these crops can draw herds into agricultural areas, raising the likelihood of conflict. “If there is a big maize field, the entire crop can be destroyed in one night,” Sheikh says.

Farmers whose livelihoods depend on their harvests can become frustrated when herds damage fields overnight. “If crops are damaged, people become angry. We have to face that too,” he adds.

When not tracking elephants, Sheikh and his team visit villages and spread awareness, discouraging villagers from using electrical fencing, and informing them about changes in elephant movement patterns.

For example, Gautami Dal—the herd Javed and his team are tracking this evening—earlier stayed in this forest for six months and then returned to Odisha. But now, they do not return, Sheikh says. They move within Dharamjaigarh and Raigarh.

“Sometimes we don’t sleep for two nights straight, moving from one village to another tracking elephants,” Sheikh says, as his phone buzzes. “I had my first meal of the day only at 3.30 p.m. It has been that busy since morning. This is how it is most days.”

What began as a hobby, driven by curiosity to see elephants up close during youth days, eventually turned into full-time work.

“Villagers were scared of elephants; there was an environment of fear. My friends and I would ride our motorcycles to the area and try to help them,” Sheikh recalls. “At that time we even paid for the fuel from our own pockets.”

“Seeing an elephant once in a while is one thing. But following the same elephant herd every day, driving for hours, protecting villagers, and dealing with problems is not easy,” he adds.

Prakash Bhagat, another Hathi Mitra volunteer from the Chhal range, says he loves wildlife and the jungle. “My father was a deputy ranger in the forest department. Since childhood, I used to travel with him through forest areas and villages,” he says.

Before joining the Hathi Mitra Dal in 2024, Bhagat worked in the corporate social responsibility wing of an energy firm, but returned to farming in his village to stay closer to home.

The daily grind

Tracking begins in the morning, first through documentation of elephant activity. “Every morning, forest guards locate elephant movement by looking for footprints and other signs such as dung or sounds in the forest,” explains Balgovind Sahu, joint divisional forest officer (DFO) of the Dharamjaigarh forest division.

The division has 78 forest guards, supported by 22 foresters, 16 deputy rangers and seven forest officers, Sahu tells us.

“This information is passed from the range office to the division, where the reports are compiled. Once the location of the herd is confirmed, updates are shared through WhatsApp groups in nearby villages so people can stay alert.”

Once the location is roughly identified, volunteers head out to track the herd on the ground. In recent years, drones have also helped volunteers scan large stretches of forest and detect elephant movement.

As Sheikh operates a drone, his eyes fixed on the screen without blinking for any sign of movement, Bhagat looks toward a nearby pond. “The Gautami Dal must have come here to drink water,” he says.

Their goal is always to keep the herds within the reserved forest area. “We do our best to make sure the elephants do not come near the village and stay within the forest range,” Bhagat says.

The Hathi Mitra volunteers are trained to handle different situations beyond basic tracking. “Training happens regularly at the local level,” says Sahu. “We teach volunteers about elephant behavior, how to protect villagers, what to do if elephants enter a village, and the dos and don’ts of managing herds. Over time, this initiative has not only built the skills of our volunteers but also changed the community’s attitude toward elephants and conservation.”

Ajay Yadav, a Hathi Mitra volunteer, unpacks a drone. In recent years, drones have helped the volunteers scan large stretches of forest and detect elephant movement.

The structural challenges

The Hathi Mitra initiative does not have a separate budget yet. “There is no separate fund for this initiative anywhere in Chhattisgarh,” Sahu says. “So far, all funding comes under the general elephant management budget. Volunteers are paid Rs 10,000 a month.

Arun Kumar Pandey, principal chief conservator of forests (development and planning), said there is no scarcity of funds. He cited the budget head for elephant-affected regions under the Chalit Hathi Suraksha Dasta (Mobile Elephant Protection Squad) as an illustration for how elephant-related activities are supported.

“If you think of this work as a source of livelihood, it is impossible; no one would do it,” says Sheikh. “There is no future in this. The risks are high and there is no insurance. You must have the right dedication, otherwise a single day’s experience is enough to leave it.”

Pandey says that the volunteer work under the Hathi Mitra Dal is demanding, and so people keep moving out of the role. For those who have put in years of work, he said, he will write to DFOs to arrange insurance cover.

“I have severe headaches, and I am not used to sleeping during the day, so it can get overwhelming,” Bhagat says. “Most days, I get only two to three hours of sleep. Sometimes we are free around 10 a.m. when the elephants stay in the reserve forest, but we always have to be ready”

The volunteers use WhatsApp for quickly spreading information about elephant movement. The official tracking app (Gaj Sanket) has limitations. A volunteer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the app does not provide precise locations. “It sometimes only gives a very broad range of detail, like 0-20 km, and never the exact location of the herd. The SMS received are inconsistent, and we can’t rely on it,” they said.

Pandey said the app is dynamic, and that the department will continue rolling out improvements to make it more effective.

The need for community participation

Mahesh Yadav, a fruit seller near the village, says that in many cases, people have to deal with the situation before officials arrive. “Whenever elephants come, we have to act ourselves. We shout and flash lights to scare them away. By the time forest officials reach, the elephants have usually moved on,” he says. “The WhatsApp group is useful though. They keep sharing updates so we can stay alert.”

Heena Rathia, a final year student of arts, says encounters with elephants have been part of life in the village for years. “Sometimes elephants come near our house or into the farm. I have been seeing this since childhood,” she says. “When they enter the fields or pass close to the houses, we inform the forest department and wait for them to come.”

Conservation experts say long-term solutions must recognise the role of people who live closest to wildlife habitats.

“You cannot think about conservation without including the people who share the landscape with these animals,” said Meetu Gupta, founder member and secretary of the Conservation Core Society, a Raipur-based organisation working across central India on wildlife conservation and protection.

Gupta says managing human-wildlife conflict requires a broader approach. “With species like elephants, leopards and sloth bears, solutions have to be collaborative. It is not only about protecting wildlife but also about addressing community concerns, livelihoods, and safety.”

She also points to the need for strengthening the capacity of Hathi Mitra volunteers. “They would benefit from more structured training in wildlife behaviour, conflict mitigation, and field safety,” she says. “If volunteers are also trained to systematically record observations from the field, that information can help researchers and forest managers develop better strategies to manage conflict in the long run.”

The next morning, the Gautami Dal eventually reached the location where the volunteers had first begun their search, Jampali. The herd prefers staying close to the mountain and hilly areas, says Bhagat. “The next day, a forest guard noticed the footprints, and the tracking report was updated as per the observation.”

This story is part of the Climate Narrative Hub’s work, developed in collaboration with The Migration Story.

We welcome feedback. Please write to respond@indiaspend.org. We reserve the right to edit responses for language and grammar.

A new report finds that young Indians are more educated than ever, that gender- and caste-based gaps have narrowed, and that young Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) workers are breaking away from occupations traditionally associated with their communities.

But it also uncovers troubling signs: young men withdrawing from education, graduate earnings stagnating, and most new jobs being created in agriculture, a sector that contributes least to output and earnings.

Rosa Abraham is associate professor of economics at Azim Premji University and lead author of the State of Working India 2026 report, which traces four decades of data on youth employment and education.

Abraham heads the Centre for Sustainable Employment at the University. Her research focusses on informal work and women’s employment with particular interest in issues at the intersection of labour statistics and women’s work.

In an email interview, Abraham discusses what the data reveal about India's labour market, the structural barriers that persist, and what it means for a country that has less than a decade to make the most of its demographic window.

Edited excerpts:

What were the three findings that surprised you the most, and why?

The first was the closing of the gender gap in entry-level salaried earnings for graduates. By 2023, a 20- to 29-year-old graduate woman was earning as much as her male peers. When we look closely at these trends, there is both cause for celebration as well as for worry.

Between 2017 and 2023, young women’s earnings increased at the rate of 1% per annum (after accounting for inflation). On the other hand, young men’s earnings have slowed down significantly, and in fact, between 2017 and 2023, average annual growth rate was -0.1% in real terms. Therefore the gender gap closing has come from a combination of both these two trends. Graduate women have seen an improvement in their labour market opportunities but not graduate men.

The second surprising trend was the withdrawal of young men from education. This is the first time this is happening in the last 40 years that we have data for. Between 2017 and 2023, the share of young men in education has fallen from 38% to 34%. And, this is not just a poor-household phenomenon. It was seen across all households and more so among the upper-middle income households.

Finally, the large increases in Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) youth in ‘modern’ industries has been heartening to see. While other studies have also pointed towards this intergenerational mobility with SC/ST sons far less likely to be in the industries that their fathers were employed in.

Let’s delve into some of these. What explains the real decline in young men's earnings between 2017 and 2023?

There were two possible explanations for this recent decline in graduate men’s earnings. One explanation was that perhaps, entry-level industries have changed for the newer cohort of young graduates. They are entering into industries that don’t pay very well. The other explanation was that industrial composition itself had not changed over time, but rather, the premiums on graduate education have gotten compressed across all industries.

We use a simple econometric technique to try and tease out which of these better explained these recent trends. What we found was that the fall in earnings did not come from a change in the composition of entry-level industries. Rather, average wage premiums to graduate education across all industries seem to have dampened, resulting in the fall in earnings.

Part of this could be a result of the fact that demand for graduates has not kept pace with the supply of graduates. Industry has created too few jobs, and the consequent ‘surplus’ of graduates have resulted in stagnation of earnings.

Secondly, if young men’s withdrawal from education is happening more in upper-middle income households where financial need is less pressing, what else might explain it?

Across all household quartiles (the poorest, and the richest), the share of young men who cite budget constraints as a reason for withdrawal from education has increased between 2017 and 2023. While the poorest household saw one of the largest such increases, it was interesting to see that the third quartile of households also saw a similarly sharp increase. This was also a strange finding for us.

One possibility is that the stagnation of salaried earnings has possibly affected the middle/upper-middle income given that the former are households that are more likely to rely on salaried incomes. Consequently, the salary squeeze may be felt acutely among them. This could explain the increase even among the upper-middle income households.

About half of the 83 million jobs added between 2021-22 and 2023-24 were in agriculture, your report finds. Taken together with the increase in women’s engagement in own-account self-employment, what does this say about the Indian economy, which is now among the world’s fastest-growing major economies?

This points towards the clear decoupling of growth from employment. India’s growth has been associated with ‘jobless’ growth. Perhaps, this ‘jobless’ aspect may have mitigated somewhat given that employment creation, particularly for young women, has picked up in the last half-decade. But if you look closely at where this employment has been created, most of it has been in agriculture—a sector that contributes least to output and investment, and a sector associated with lowest earnings. Therefore, while growth may not necessarily be jobless, it has certainly not created the kinds of jobs that a young, highly educated workforce would want.

What we have seen is a structural regression—workers, especially women, returning to agriculture. So on the one hand, we have a high growth rate, but on the other hand, we have this structural regression. It suggests that growth has not necessarily been very equitable.

The share of young men withdrawing from education citing household income needs has jumped from 58% to 72% in six years, you found. Given gender and caste differentials of access, what does this mean for India’s tertiary education?

Over the last few years, gender-based gaps in tertiary enrolment rates (TER) have more or less closed, which is a phenomenal achievement. Caste-based differences have also narrowed somewhat, although TER among STs still remains relatively low. Against an overall TER of 28, ST enrolment rate is still around 21, as of 2022. Of course, it is an increase from 8, which is what it was a decade ago, but there is still a gap that needs to be closed.

The fact that young men are withdrawing could mean that women’s TER may now exceed men’s—again, a kind of perverse convergence, similar to what we see in the case of graduate earnings.

And this withdrawal, to support household incomes, has not been restricted to only poor households; rather it is seen across all income groups of households. This means that it is likely to affect SC/ST men as much as it does other caste group men too. This is the first time we’re seeing this kind of reversal in TER for men.

While the percentage of unemployment among graduate Indians is more or less in line with the past, you found, a higher population and enrolment are leading to more absolute numbers of unemployed graduates. But graduate salaries are twice that of non-graduates, and the difference widens over their lifetimes. What does this say about the structure of India’s economy?

Graduate education still carries with it a high premium. For that alone, investing in a graduate education is worth its while, leaving aside the social prestige that comes with it.

In the Report, we try to estimate the returns on investment in education—if someone were to enroll in education, that entails some foregone income in terms of lost years working. At the same time, graduate education subsequently allows for entry into better, higher paying, usually salaried, employment.

Taking these two counteracting trends into account, we estimate the net returns on investment in education and find these returns to be very high. This explains the continued investment in education, aside from the other social factors that push for graduate education.

However, the pathway into good jobs, after graduation, has become more tenuous in the last few years. In a separate study, with my co-author Surbhi Kesar, we find that there is no ladder into formal/salaried employment from informal employment. The only way to secure permanent salaried employment is to enter into the labour market as a salaried worker, i.e. your entry level job.

And as a result, you’ll find graduates waiting longer to get their ‘aspirational’ employment, which with age, mellows and perhaps recalibrates, and they eventually enter, but not necessarily into their aspired job.

This is the result of constraints in job creation alongside a highly dual economy—a salaried, formal, but small segment coexisting alongside a large and highly informal segment.

A related finding is that the overall capacity to spend time searching for a job has increased, with existing divides showing up on gender and caste lines. Fifty percent of young graduates find employment within a year, but salaried employment is rarer. Young men either find employment within a year or do not find, even up to three years. And sons of less educated fathers find any employment earlier, but are less likely to find permanent salaried jobs. Do you see this affecting choices at the tertiary level?

The mechanical expectation is that a slowdown in graduate earnings and the difficulty in acquiring salaried employment may result in households investing less and less in tertiary education. But, the reality is that firstly, graduates still earn double what non-graduates do, and as I mentioned their returns on investment in education is very high.

And secondly, households do not invest in education solely for its labour market value. There is social prestige too, not just for men but for women too. Education has an important role to play in the marriage market too.

For young girls in India, education has become a vehicle for upward social mobility not through educational homogamy but rather through educational hypogamy—women marrying men who are less educated than them—but belong to a socially/economically higher group. Therefore, it is too early to see these dampening trends affecting tertiary enrolment rates.

Younger cohorts are less likely to be concentrated in traditional occupations associated with their social background, you found. What does this say about education or skilling being social levelers?

The Report finds that younger generations of SC/STs are less and less likely to be in industries that are traditionally associated with these caste groups—leather, waste, mining etc, compared to the youth in the older generations. This points towards a weakening of caste-based occupational segregation.

In the Report, we have not looked at how these patterns are different for graduates versus non-graduates. Separate studies have established that education has enabled a faster mobility away from these traditional occupations. Therefore, it is likely that higher education has indeed facilitated this intergenerational mobility. What was also good to see was what the new employers were.

The last 40 years have seen a sharp rise especially in manufacturing of motor vehicles, paper manufacturing, and in the modern, higher earnings services industry such as business support and financial services.

When SC/ST youth enter manufacturing or business support services, are they entering as salaried employees with some security, or predominantly as contract and casual workers? Has the nature of employment—not just the sector—also improved?

In the report, we do not look specifically at the youth cohort of SC/ST within each industry to see how their pattern of employment has changed. The reason we avoid this is that the datasets that we work with (the national labour force surveys), being a sample survey, do not have a large enough sample for us to make a concrete/definitive analysis. The SC/ST youth sample within specific industries when disaggregated by employment arrangements become a very small sample, in terms of absolute numbers, and it would not be reasonable to infer from such a thin sample.

However, in the State of Working India 2023, we do find substantial intergenerational mobility when comparing employment arrangements of father-son pairs. This is seen across all groups including the SC/STs, although less so for SC/STs. So, sons of fathers who were in casual wage work were less likely to be in casual work themselves. Extending this finding, one can infer that the industrial mobility that we see may also be accompanied by mobility in terms of employment types too.

In many cases, employers now increasingly rely on independent testing of credentials rather than relying on degree certifications, you write. What does that mean going forward for India’s education systems?

We have cited papers by Fuller (2022) and Copestake (2023) that many employers are moving away from using degree certifications alone. We do not have studies that concretely establish this but hiring patterns among employers do point towards independent testing becoming an important screening device, over and above degree credentials.

There are two ways this can go. Either our existing educational curriculums are upgraded to better address industry needs, or students will increasingly have to invest in other kinds of certifications beyond the degree to ‘signal’ their quality.

The report mentions the potential fall in numbers of entry-level jobs due to AI. How do you see this affecting employment across groups?

It is too early to say what the AI impact is going to be. Will it substitute for workers or will it complement workers? It is likely that AI will affect entry level jobs, especially tasks that are repetitive and non-cognitive. To the extent that these are jobs most occupied by young workers, it is likely that they are going to be most immediately impacted. We are already seeing a slowdown in entry level jobs, according to different sources.

Given that you have studied 40 years of data, are there historical parallels to such slowdowns, where technological change disrupted entry-level absorption, that offer any guidance?

Unlike earlier disruptions, I think the difference with AI is we don’t really have an idea of what the kind of disruption is going to be. For instance, when computers were introduced, or say, digital booking platforms for cabs, there was an idea of what kind of work was getting displaced, even if the extent of displacement itself was unknown. With AI and the labour market, I think the big difference is we don’t really have any idea how AI is going to progress, what’s going to take off, what is going to have a wider scaled-up expansion.

AI can substitute for certain tasks in which it can displace labour; at the same time it can also augment workers in their tasks, in which case it can increase productivity. What we do know comes from initial trends and not all in the Indian context. This is what makes it difficult to really prepare for the kind of disruption that might unfold in the coming years.

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