What really makes a job aspirational for young Indians?

For young Indians from low-income households, a job is not aspirational only because of the salary it offers. Dignity of work, upward mobility and respect are among the factors that shape their career choices.

Almost 62 per cent of the 1,600 youths (60 per cent males; rest females) from tier 3 and 4 cities and low-income households surveyed by citizen media platform Youth Ki Awaaz have said that job stability, the opportunity to move up the social ladder, and respect were their top factors while evaluating an employment opportunity.

“Young people are not rejecting blue-collar work, but they are very conscious of how their community—essentially parents, friends and neighbours—views certain jobs, more than what their teachers say, and want to take those options,” says Anshul Tewari, founder and CEO, Youth Ki Awaaz. According to him, the key question they are asking themselves is: how do I meet the parameters set by others for me?

Tewari and other speakers were part of the panel discussion ‘India's New Skilling Journey: Aspiration, Access and Beyond’ at the social impact event Charcha 2026, organised by The/Nudge Foundation in New Delhi recently.

“For the youth, what is aspirational is unfortunately decided by society, and government jobs are one of them. That has not changed even though these [jobs] are far and few today,” says Mekin Maheshwari, founder and CEO of Udhyam Learning Foundation. Udhyam has worked with some 1.8 million students in government schools on building an entrepreneurial mindset.PATHWAY TO ASPIRATIONS

The youth are not objectively looking at realities of the job market. “We sell a dream that doesn’t work for the majority. We need to sell a dream that’s achievable,” emphasises Maheshwari. He shares how in an Udhyam survey conducted with government school students, almost 85 per cent of 14-year-olds had clear and bold ambitions, but by the age of 18, less than 25 per cent believed they could achieve them.

“Young people have aspirations and dreams. There is no dearth of that in our country, and their own ambitions can create opportunity. What we need is to encourage it, make it aspirational,” says Maheshwari.

That’s where he talks about the importance of narrative-building through movies, music, reels, Instagram, etc.—essentially media that youth get most of their information from. “How many movies talk about successful small businesses?” he asks, adding that movies and even personalities like Aamir Khan have been significantly underleveraged for promoting messaging around dignity of labour and the importance of working hard.

To which, Tewari adds: “If most of the conversation of youth is happening there, the narrative about entrepreneurship needs to be built there; otherwise we will lose out.”

Often, a gap exists between what young people perceive a job to be and what its reality is. They pursue higher education in the hope of getting a white-collar job in a global company, aspiring to work in fancy offices. Career guidance and better narratives around work can help bridge this gap.

To put it in perspective, Divya Nambiar, youth, skills, and livelihoods lead and principal consultant at Oxford Policy Management, shared her doctoral research on young women who had found work at a Nokia factory in a special economic zone. While it was an aspirational job for them in a global company, they soon realised it meant standing 12 hours a day on an assembly line and travelling 50 km one way to work. This led many to reconsider the option. Nambiar’s research found that out of 10 people who join a new job, only three remain after three months and just one a year on.

Tewari says that these gaps need to be filled because, unlike before, when children followed their parents’ career trajectories, they now live in a very volatile and highly unstructured world.

Maheshwari suggests the world is changing so fast that instead of teaching ‘skills of the future’, the focus should be on creating strong foundational skills—essentially the four Cs: communication, critical thinking, collaboration and creativity.

In addition, the role of career guidance becomes extremely important, but not in the traditional sense wherein experts give their views on what’s available. Instead, it should handhold adolescents through their journey of self-discovery, enabling them to explore different options and figure out what interests them, he says.