Realities, perception and occupational aspiration: A case study of northeastern rural youth in India

Abstract

Eradicating rural poverty by 2030 is the one of the most important goals of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Formulating visionary policies to meet this ambitious target demands understanding the ground realities, perceptions and aspiration of the rural youth. Through this work we tried to study the current participation pattern, perception and aspirations of the young people in rural areain various occupations. Using a5-point continuumLikert scale shows that rural youth in general has a positive perception towards non-farm as economic activities with 3.75 as the mean perception. In the same line, the survey reflects that 59 per cent of the female and 50 per cent of the male aspires for government job. Using a multiple regression analysis it was observed that mass media utilization has a positive and significant effect on perception towards non-farm occupation. Whereas, those with more farming experience and land availability had a higher aspiration towards farming.