VizChitra 2025

Describe your talk:
Instead of wondering whether you should follow your parents’ exact career path, have you considered how different the world of work might be for your generation compared to your father’s? whether everyone has the same opportunities to move up the ladder? This talk delves into the employment arrangements of fathers and sons in India between 2004 and 2019, using data from the Employment and Unemployment Surveys (EUS) and the Periodic Labour Force Surveys (PLFS). This research goes beyond simple job titles to understand whether individuals are in regular salaried work, casual wage work, or self-employment and how they move across crucial sectors like agriculture, manufacturing, construction, and services.
By analyzing these intergenerational shifts, the study sheds light on social mobility and reveals whether sons are generally experiencing better job prospects than their fathers. What’s particularly compelling is that this mobility isn’t uniform across all of India’s diverse social and religious groups. For instance, our findings highlights how the General category and Other Backward Classes (OBC) have seen more noticeable improvements in job opportunities compared to Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST). We’ll also delve into how Hindus are increasingly transitioning from casual to regular salaried work, while self-employment remains a significant aspect for Muslims. This research underscores how India’s economic transformation interacts with deep-rooted social structures, shaping the employment pathways of different generations

Takeaways
•How intergenerational employment patterns are evolving in India.
•The impact of economic changes and structural transformation on job opportunities across generations.
•The persistent challenges faced by marginalized communities in achieving upward mobility

Who is the audience:
This session will be relevant to anyone interested in:
•Social mobility and inequality.
•Economic development and labor markets in India.
•The interplay of social structures (caste, religion) and economic opportunities.
•Understanding the changing nature of work and employment in a developing economy

About Me:
I am Shravan M.K., currently working as a Research Associate at the Centre for Sustainable Employment (CSE), APU, Bangalore. Prior to joining CSE, I worked with Live Mint in business analytics. I hold a Master’s degree in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. My interests lie in Labour Economics, particularly at the intersection of caste, class, and gender in labour markets. My work has also appeared in The Hindu, Live Mint, and The Wire.