Mood of First-Time Voter: 11% in Tier 3 cities say extremely easy to find jobs; 70% in Tier 2 cities oppose caste-based reservation

The Lok Sabha election in a few months is set to see a massive 130 million first-time voters go to the polls. The stakes are already high for the National Democratic Alliance that seeks to secure five more years and a seemingly united Opposition that seeks to dislodge the ruling BJP and its allies at any cost. To get a better idea of how young first-time voters — people aged 18 to 21 — perceive of the forthcoming election, YouGov India and Firstpost conducted a nationwide survey between 5 and 16 December, 2018. There was a total of 1,332 respondents, from a panel of over 40,000, who answered questions ranging from politics and jobs, to religion and the media. The findings are being serialised in four sections: 1)  Politics and Ideology 2)  News and Media 3)  Religion 4) Jobs and Economy The third part of the section titled ‘Jobs and Economy’ examines the differing views of respondents from Tier 1, 2 and 3 cities. When asked how easy it was to find a job in India, 11 percent of respondents from Tier 3 cities said it was extremely easy, while 20 percent of those from Tier 1 cities said it was extremely difficult. While respondents from all three tiers of cities cited the lack of job opportunities to be the biggest impediment to finding a job, the second biggest impediment in Tier 1 and 3 cities was low pay scales, while in Tier 2 cities, the poor quality of education was stated as the second biggest impediment. In terms of whether or not there should be caste-based reservation in government jobs and education, 30 percent of Tier 3 city residents supported the idea, while 70 percent of respondents from Tier 2 cities opposed it. To read the findings of the section of the survey titled 'Politics and Ideology', click here . To read the findings of the section of the survey titled 'News and Media', click here . To read the findings of the section of the survey titled 'Religion', click here