A first-ever survey to study the behavioural pattern of the youth in the country — conducted across six states — has revealed a high rate of unemployment among the educated section, especially among women, lack of comprehensive knowledge about HIV/AIDS, high rate of tobacco consumption among men and low participation in community programmes. Also, it has found that more women than men were married before the prescribed legal age and in Jharkhand the percentage was as high as 81.

The survey was conducted by the Mumbai-based International Institute of Population Sciences (IIPS), in collaboration with the Population Council, New Delhi, at a time when the Centre has begun work to formulate the next National Youth Policy.

IIPS undertook the household-based survey in six states from January 2006 to take forward the 10 thematic issues raised in a UN worldwide study of the youth. The institute is now collating the baseline data. However, it is ready with fact-sheets for Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu. The fact-sheets for Bihar and Rajasthan will soon be ready, and that of Andhra Pradesh by April 2008.

“We chose these six states as they are representative of their regions,” said Dr Usha Ram, one of the coordinators for the IIPS survey. Over 1.5 lakh households were interviewed in these six states.There were 300 primary sampling units from each of the states, with 150 units from urban and 150 from rural areas. And each of the units surveyed had 75 men and an equal number of women. In Maharashtra, 25,641 households were interviewed, 37,893 in Tamil Nadu, 28,258 in Jharkhand and 28,585 in Bihar.

... contd.