Mood of First-Time Voter: Extremely difficult to find jobs in India, say 20% females; 25% males eye startup route

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 first part of the section titled ‘Jobs and Economy’ examines the differing views of male and female respondents. When asked how easy it was to find a job in India, seven percent of males and four percent of females said it was extremely easy, while 18 and 20 percent of males and females respectively said it was extremely difficult. While 43 percent males and females felt the lack of job opportunities was the biggest challenge in finding employment, 21 percent of males felt poor quality of education was to blame, while 23 percent of females felt low pay scales were at fault. If unable to find a job, 25 percent of male respondents said they would rather start their own business than wait for a job, while 44 percent of female respondents said they would study further and then seek job opportunities. The majority of both sections (40 percent of males and 48 percent of females) stated that their biggest career fear was the inability to fulfil aspirations. 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