Nearly 23% of Karnataka youth neither working nor studying – New report reveals stark gender gaps barring women from jobs

The Karnataka State Handbook on Youth Opportunity, released by the Future of India Foundation, synthesises 180 indicators from 27 government databases into a YouthPOWER scorecard and an action agenda to tackle widening intra‑state disparities in education, skilling and employment.

The handbook estimates that about 22.9% of the youth population under 35 in Karnataka are neither employed nor studying, even as the state’s overall unemployment rate has come down to 8.6%. The report finds that roughly 42% of youth are in the workforce and about 35% are studying or in training; 44% of workers hold regular salaried jobs. While these headline numbers show improvement compared with earlier years, the report warns they mask deep geographic and gender imbalances.

“The task is to turn prosperity into opportunity for all young people — not only in and around Bengaluru, but across the State,” the report says, arguing that Karnataka’s strengths in technology and industry must translate into local jobs and pathways for young people outside the capital.

5 key pillars and a district scorecard

The handbook ranks districts along five POWER pillars — ‘Participation, Opportunities, Work, Education and Readiness (skilling)’ — using 180 data points to create comparable district-level scores. Karnataka’s overall YouthPOWER score of 48.5 is only marginally below the national average of 50, but the inter‑district spread is stark: Bengaluru Urban leads with a score of 65 while backward districts such as Yadgir score as low as 42.

Ruchi Gupta, Executive Director of the Future of India Foundation, said at the release that the scorecard offers “non‑partisan language” for elected representatives and administrators to act on youth opportunity at the district level.

“Ensuring that all youth succeed concerns all of us. The YouthPOWER scorecard gives elected representatives, administrators and citizens non‑partisan language to act on it,” she was quoted as saying in the official handbook.

Concentration of opportunities fuels migration to Bengaluru

The report highlights how formal employment and higher‑quality opportunities remain highly concentrated in and around Bengaluru, prompting outmigration that strains the city’s infrastructure. Districts with weaker local opportunity ecosystems are losing young talent to the capital rather than creating local employment.

The handbook traces some positive trends:

• Share of youth in the state labour force rose from 40% in 2017–18 to 45.6% in 2025
• Unemployment fell from 15.8% to 8.6%
• Real monthly wages increased by roughly 23% over the same period
• Training reach — the share of youth who received any vocational or technical training — climbed from 6.5% to 28.5%.

Yet the authors in the report warn these gains have not been evenly shared across districts.

Skills quality and ITI shortfalls

Karnataka’s large network of Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) should, in principle, be a pipeline to employment. But the report finds worrying quality gaps in several districts: students often leave ITI courses without the intended credentials, about half the trainer positions are vacant state-wide and only one in four registered enterprises take apprentices.

Districts flagged for such problems include:

• Bagalkot
• Bidar
• Chikkamagaluru
• Davangere
• Kalaburagi
• Kodagu
• Raichur
• Vijayanagar
• Vijayapura

The handbook cautions that increasing “training reach” is only the first step — converting education and skilling capacity into real skills and jobs requires better instructor availability, industry linkages and apprenticeship uptake.

Gender barriers and the heavy cost of unpaid care

The report also places particular emphasis on gender gaps. Around 90% of women in Karnataka who are not employed or enrolled in education cite domestic work or childcare as the principal reason they are out of the labour force. Only one in four young women participates in the workforce, and only about one in three can travel alone to a market or clinic.

The gendered employment gaps appear even among graduates: female graduate unemployment stands at 24% compared with 13% for male graduates. Women are also disproportionately engaged in unpaid labour: while 17% of working youth do unpaid work such as family farming or enterprise, the proportion rises to 24% for women.

The report examines social constraints too. Despite the Shakti scheme that offers free travel for women in Karnataka, in 20 out of 31 districts more women are not allowed to travel alone to the market or clinic. In a dozen districts most women lack a decisive voice in household decisions that shape their lives. Ruchi Gupta highlighted the need to “bring women fully into the workforce” so that the state’s prosperity benefits all young people.

Local finance and lending patterns vary

The handbook also looks at local credit flows. Most districts show bank credit directed toward agriculture, industry and trade — channels that can support job creation. However, Mysuru and Udupi are exceptions where bank lending leans more toward personal loans than productive credit, raising questions about whether local finance is reaching businesses that generate work.

The report notes that most districts have active local demand for loans, with bank credit high relative to deposits, an indicator of potential for employment‑linked lending if channelled appropriately.

District contrasts: Bengaluru vs. the North

The scorecard exposes pronounced intra‑state inequality. Bengaluru Urban (65) and Ramanagara (57) feature among the best performing districts, reflecting dense industry, higher educational attainment and stronger work opportunities. In contrast, districts in northern Karnataka like Raichur and Yadgir lag with scores around 42, reflecting weaker infrastructure, lower skilling outcomes and fewer formal job opportunities.

“These advantages must be extended across the whole state rather than left concentrated in Bengaluru. That concentration strains the city’s infrastructure and pushes young people from other districts to migrate in search of opportunity,” Ruchi Gupta said in her foreword to the handbook.

Policy recommendations and an Action Agenda

Alongside diagnostics, the Karnataka State Handbook on Youth Opportunity proposes an Action Agenda centred on four priorities: prepare youth for work (improving quality of education and skilling), support enterprise (ease finance and entrepreneurship support), create local jobs (sectoral and place‑based interventions) and prioritise youth in district governance (data‑driven local planning). The report urges strengthening ITI capacity, filling trainer vacancies, expanding apprenticeship linkages and incentivising industries to set up operations outside the Bengaluru hinterland.

The handbook also calls for targeted measures to bring women into the workforce — from providing childcare and safe transport to shifting social norms through community programming — and for local financial instruments that prioritise productive lending to job‑creating enterprises.

Why this matters for Karnataka and national policy?

The Future of India Foundation emphasises that district‑level improvement matters because “85% of Indians live in the district of their birth.” Local opportunity shapes migration flows, city pressures and the realisation of economic growth for citizens. As Karnataka continues to host one of India’s deepest technology and industrial bases, the challenge is to ensure that prosperity creates opportunity across districts and genders rather than concentrating benefits in a few urban centres.

The Karnataka State Handbook on Youth Opportunity offers a granular, evidence‑based mapping of who the state’s young people are, where opportunities exist and where they are missing. Its YouthPOWER scorecard equips policymakers, administrators and civil society with a district lens for targeted interventions. Translating these diagnostics into local action — better ITI functioning, apprenticeship uptake, women‑friendly infrastructure, productive credit and enterprise support outside Bengaluru — will determine whether Karnataka can sustainably convert its economic strengths into inclusive opportunities for its youth.