Introduction

Youth, as defined by the United Nations, comprise people aged 15 to 24, forming part of the UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda. Youth capabilities are increasingly relevant for global human development, as there are predicted to be 1.3 billion ‘young’ individuals in the world by 2030 (United Nations, 2019: chap. 1). Youth comprise one-fifth of the population in India (census, 2011), and are not only the ‘means’ for a potential demographic dividend but require special attention as ‘ends’. From a human development and capabilities perspective, the question is how to improve youth capabilities, and strengthen their well-being and freedom opportunities, especially for a developing country such as India. Youth constitute a group that is targeted and researched in policy circles, though its relevance in India remains all the more important, as India is predicted to remain younger longer than other rapidly growing large Asian economies, such as China and Indonesia. The precarity of youth remains a matter of concern, because, despite forming a major chunk of the population, they remain deprived in terms of education, health and opportunities to develop their skills (Okada, 2012). Here, it is important to focus on youth as a group that is vulnerable and important for two reasons: one, their age is a critical period in terms of susceptibility to adversities and deprivations; and, two, they have unfulfilled potential that may further reduce their abilities as adults, weaken societies and economies (Hardgrove et al, 2014) and hamper the potential demographic dividend. My research objective focuses on the capabilities of youth due to the critical dimension of their age.

The ‘human development and capabilities approach’, adopted as the theoretical framework for this research, has evolved over time, with a specific focus on not just what human beings do, but what they are (Prabhu and Iyer, 2019) and can choose to become. Understanding of youth must go deeper than economic outcomes or the human resource development approach. Instead, youth's quality of life needs to be at the centre of the debate, and must focus on individuals’ choices, freedoms and opportunities (Nussbaum, 2011). Capabilities refers to a set of vectors or ‘functionings’, reflecting the person's freedom to lead one type of life or another (Nussbaum and Sen, 1993).