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Research vertical 04
Why educated young people struggle to find work at home, why women's participation in paid work remains low, and how migration in and out of Kerala shapes the labour market.
Work is where public policy meets private life most directly. This vertical studies who works, who does not, and why, with a particular focus on the paradoxes of the Kerala labour market.
Kerala sends hundreds of thousands of its own people abroad to work, while depending on workers from other states for construction, hospitality and agriculture at home. It educates its young women to a high level, yet relatively few of them are in paid employment. Graduates queue for government jobs while private employers say they cannot find the skills they need. None of these patterns is inevitable. All of them have policy causes and policy remedies.
The vertical collaborates with trade unions, employers’ associations, migrant support groups and the labour department.
Why does a highly educated workforce face unemployment at home while employers report shortages?
What keeps educated women out of paid work, and which policies have changed that elsewhere?
How should the state prepare for workers returning from the Gulf?
What protections do workers from other states actually receive in Kerala?
For half a century, work in the Gulf has shaped Kerala's households, towns and politics. As more migrants return, the state faces a question it has rarely had to answer: what will they do here?
Research Associate One, Scholar Two
Half my class is planning to study or work abroad. A student's view of why, and of what the state could do about it.
Intern Two
A state that educates its daughters as well as Kerala does, and then loses their talent to the labour market, is leaving its most important growth opportunity unused.
Research Fellow One
Kerala educates its young people to a high level, yet many graduates struggle to find work that matches their qualifications. This report traces the gap between what colleges teach and what employers need.
Researcher One, Research Associate One
Headlines about women's employment often rest on surveys that count some kinds of work and miss others. A guide to reading the numbers carefully.
Research Associate One
ConferenceIn person
ColloquiumHybrid
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