Youth Development Index

Youth form an integral part of any society and are an essential part of the development process. India is a ‘young’ nation.  As per Census of India 2001, the size of youth population in the country is 422.3 million, with 219 million males and 203 million females comprising of above 41 percent of the total Indian population.  Youth population in the age group 16-30 years is expected to increase over the coming years as per available trends. The recently released National Youth Policy has come up with a proposed Youth Development Index.

Youth Development Index: Objectives

• The objective is to construct Youth Development Index which can be used across the country by the State, academia, and other organizations/institutions in civil society, to ascertain the status of youth vis-à-vis the systemic dimensions which influence their growth and empowerment.
• Understand and analyse the status of youth in the country vis-à-vis the objectives of the National Youth Policy 2012 (NYP2012).
• Obtain perceptions of youth about the factors that facilitate/impinge on their growth and empowerment.
• Provide policy makers with a tool and data to formulate programes for youth.

How it will contribute?

The creation of a youth development index is expected to contribute in three ways.

• It would help to recognize youth as a population category that requires separate consideration. For instance, despite the existence of a national youth policy for the past 20 years, in many quarters youth as a significant category have not got recognition.
• Development of a summary index would help to make comparison possible across geographical areas and categories, as human development index has done in comparing the development situation across regions, nations and localities.
• The proposed index, apart from measuring the achievement made (in comparison with other societies and in comparison with the past), would help in advocacy activities related to youth development in general and of specific categories in particular.

The youth development index would provide a basic idea of the relative level in a particular society or a category of youth within a society, a comprehensive understanding of youth development could be achieved only if the index is studied along with information on so many other facets of youth development. 

Methodology

The Youth development index aims at substantial contribution to the situational analysis of development of youth across the sections of society. In order to build a comprehensive index, the following principles are considered.

The YDI would be ‘youth centered’. 

Youth are not a homogenous group and differences across the categories mentioned below would be studied. 

• Location: urban, rural , tribal
• Terrain : hills, plains
• Shelter : those with  shelter, homeless
• Economic class :      upper, middle and lower
• Gender : male, female,
• Sexual orientations
• Role :student, non-student; employed , unemployed

Among the categories mentioned above, there is a large proportion of youth who are socially marginalized. These are rural and tribal youth; out of school youth; adolescents particularly female youth; youth with disability, and youth under specially difficult circumstances like victims of trafficking, orphans and street children.

• Youth are shaped by all their experiences from birth.
• The dimensions of the YDI would consider and include two facets of ‘youth’.
• A group that has specific life goals and tasks related to their stage of growth. e.g., education, identity, work, family (Youth Development)
• A group that can be mobilized for social and cultural change e.g., participation in societal issues (Youth for Development).
• The YDI will aim to obtain objective data [e.g., access to systems and services, status in each dimension] and subjective interpretations [e.g., factors facilitating/ blocking access and participation] by the youth.
• The themes are derived from the major documents which have addressed the issues related to youth, globally in the Indian context.

The YDI will be based on the HDI model, but certain themes would be added considering the youth’s specific characteristics and Rights.  It would be a standardized tool to measure certain critical areas of youth development. It is not intended to study and evaluate all aspects of youth development.

The five domains of the YDI would be Health, Education, Employment, Amenities and Participation.  Since there would be several indicators within each domain, comparing variation in data would filter out those indicators that would show meaningful variability.  

Two Youth Development Indices could be constructed. One for states with primary data available for all domain indicators and the second for states with secondary data available for all domain indicators. Gender dimension as well as a correction for sex ratio in the youth population, would be considered while computing the youth development indices.

Selected Indicators

Health:       

• % Assisted/Institutional delivery   (represents access)
• Life expectancy at age 15  (represents outcome)
• % youth- Non-Anemic  (represents outcome)
• Body Mass Index (represents outcome)

Education:

• Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER secondary +GER tertiary) (represents access)
• Level of education attained (literate, primary, secondary, tertiary, vocational) (represents outcome)

Work:

• Work participation rate (represents outcome)
• Available days of work in a year per youth (represents access)

Amenities

• Basic Amenities
• Access to safe water
• Type of house
• Access to electricity
• Toilet facility
• Youth Amenities
• Information
• Communication
• Technology

Participation

• Percentage of youth aged 18 and above who have enrolled as a voter
• Percentage of those voted in the last election among those enrolled as a voter
• While the chosen dimensions would be given equal weights in the YDI, differential weights would be given to sub indexes within a dimension and to indicators within sub-dimensions.

The sub-indexes are:

• YHIf = Youth Health Index for Female
  
• YHIm = Youth Health Index for Male
  
• YEIf = Youth Education Index for Female
  
• YEIm = Youth Education Index for Male
  
• YWIf = Youth Work Index for Female
  
• YWIm = Youth Work Index for Male
  
• YAIf = Youth Amenities Index for Female
  
• YAIf = Youth Amenities Index for Male
  
• YPIf = Youth Participation Index for Female
  
• YPIm = Youth Participation Index for Male
  
• YDIf = Youth Development Index for Female
  
• YDIm = Youth Development Index for Male
  
• YDI = Youth Development Index
  

Considering four (health, education, work and amenities) dimensions based on secondary data, the YDI for males would be calculated as follows:

In the same way YDI would be computed for females.

In case of considering five (health, education, work, amenities and participation) dimensions, the YDI for males and females would be computed as

YDI = Youth Development Index

= (Proportion of Female * YDIf ) + (Proportion of Male * YDIm)

YGDI = Youth Gender Development Index

YGDISR = Youth Gender Development Index adjusted for Sex-ratio

= Sex-ratio Correction Factor * YGDI

Firstly, the YDI would be computed with the four dimensions of health, education, work, and amenities. This index would then be adjusted initially for gender disparity (Youth Gender Development Index) and sex ratio (Youth Gender Development Index Adjusted for Sex ratio). Subsequently, the YDI would be calculated. This will also be adjusted for the gender disparity and sex ratio. In both the cases, the YDI would be initially computed separately for males and females.

The process of construction of the index would be conducted periodically to provide an opportunity to regularly and comprehensively assess the situation of youth across the country. (Source: Official National Youth Policy Documents).