Rung 10 — Degree, general
49.26 million people aged 21–34. 24.91% hold a regular salaried job, of which 16.20% of the rung is formal work — about half the rate of a technical diploma.
Self-contained: everything below is derived from PLFS CY2025 for this rung alone. The ladder-wide
comparison is in ../README.md.
Who is counted
Section titled “Who is counted”| Filter | Value |
|---|---|
release_id |
calendar_2025 |
visit |
V1 |
gedu_lvl |
12 — graduate, not postgraduate |
tedu_lvl |
anything except a technical degree (02–06) |
age |
21–34 |
Sample: 57,555 people across 19,157 first-stage units, representing 49.26 million.
This is India’s graduate labour market. Every B.A., B.Sc., B.Com. and B.B.A. — 49 million people, the largest rung on the ladder after the school levels, and 85% of everyone holding a bachelor’s degree (69% if postgraduates are counted in the denominator).
Composition: 53,059 hold no technical qualification at all; 4,496 hold a diploma alongside
their degree. The latter are here rather than on the diploma rungs because their general education
is what places them on the ladder and they hold no technical degree. This is the point on which
the merged graduate analysis in
../../plfs/entry/ differs: its “Technical diploma”
and “Other diploma” buckets are exactly these 4,496 people, mislabelled as diploma holders.
PLFS cannot subdivide this rung. Its only field-of-study variable is tedu_lvl, which records
technical and professional qualifications; arts, science and commerce are indistinguishable. The
occupation table below is the only window into what these 49 million people actually studied for.
What they are doing
Section titled “What they are doing”| Share | People | |
|---|---|---|
| Formal work | 16.20% | 7.98m |
| Informal wage work | 9.84% | 4.85m |
| Self-employed, earning | 10.76% | 5.30m |
| Studying | 11.83% | 5.83m |
| Unemployed, seeking | 11.75% | 5.79m |
| Domestic duties | 24.96% | 12.30m |
A general degree delivers 16.20% formal employment. A technical diploma delivers 30.77% — nearly double, at a fraction of the time and cost. This is the single most uncomfortable comparison on the ladder, and it holds for both sexes.
Only 16 in 100 hold a formal job; 25 in 100 are in domestic duties, the highest of any post-school rung.
Gender
Section titled “Gender”| Share of rung | Formal work | Domestic duties | Median wage | People | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Male | 50.5% | 22.81% | 0.19% | ₹25,000 | 24.87m |
| Female | 49.5% | 9.46% | 50.22% | ₹20,000 | 24.39m |
Half the women holding India’s most common degree are in domestic duties, and 9.46% hold a formal job. The gap is 2.4× — wider than every rung from technical diploma upward, and this rung is twelve times larger than all of them combined.
A woman with a technical diploma reaches 20.60% formal employment. A woman with a general degree reaches 9.46%. The diploma is worth more than twice the degree to her, and the degree takes longer.
Urban and rural
Section titled “Urban and rural”| Share | Formal work | Median wage | People | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rural | 55.2% | 10.43% | ₹18,000 | 27.21m |
| Urban | 44.8% | 23.31% | ₹25,000 | 22.05m |
What formal work pays
Section titled “What formal work pays”Monthly wage among the 16.20% in formal work, measured on tenure.
| Tenure | n | p25 | Median | p75 | p90 | ≥₹30k | ≥₹50k |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 1 year | 818 | ₹13,000 | ₹18,000 | ₹25,000 | ₹35,000 | 19.7% | 3.3% |
| 1 to 3 years | 3,218 | ₹15,000 | ₹21,000 | ₹30,000 | ₹40,000 | 30.2% | 6.2% |
| Over 3 years | 4,814 | ₹16,500 | ₹25,000 | ₹38,000 | ₹50,000 | 43.5% | 11.5% |
The median rises 1.39× — ₹18,000 to ₹25,000. That is the lowest growth of any degree rung (engineering 1.68×, other technical 1.67×, medical 1.40×), though marginally above both diploma rungs at 1.34× and 1.33×.
Set against the technical diploma directly: the degree starts ₹2,000 a month higher (₹18,000 against ₹16,000) and ends ₹3,500 higher (₹25,000 against ₹21,500). That is the whole wage advantage of three or four extra years of study — and it comes with a 14.6 percentage point lower chance of holding a formal job at all.
Cells here are the largest on the ladder — 818, 3,218 and 4,814. Every figure in this table is precisely measured.
Where the formal jobs are
Section titled “Where the formal jobs are”| Occupation | n | Share | Median wage |
|---|---|---|---|
| General office clerks | 752 | 6.9% | ₹25,000 |
| Software and application developers, and analysts | 381 | 5.9% | ₹35,000 |
| Finance professionals | 430 | 5.7% | ₹25,000 |
| Primary school and early childhood teachers | 626 | 4.9% | ₹20,000 |
| Protective service workers | 484 | 4.8% | ₹34,580 |
| Keyboard operators | 426 | 4.2% | ₹17,000 |
The flattest occupation distribution on the ladder — the top six account for 32.4% of formal work, against 65.7% for engineering. There is no characteristic job for a general degree.
Note the two extremes: software developers at ₹35,000 and protective service workers — security guards — at ₹34,580, versus keyboard operators at ₹17,000. A general degree leads everywhere and nowhere.
What the premium jobs actually are
Section titled “What the premium jobs actually are”1.41% of this rung reaches a job paying ≥₹6 lakh a year — 727 people in the survey. Because that cell is well measured, it can be opened up. The question it answers: when a general degree does pay, what is the person doing?
Three routes were proposed in advance and tested as pre-specified clusters, each defined to include every related NCO code so the test could not be flattered by burying part of a cluster in the tail:
| Route | Share of the ≥₹6L jobs | n | Public sector |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software / IT | 21.23% | 112 | 2.5% |
| Teaching | 8.86% | 87 | 96.1% |
| Protective services / armed forces | 6.45% | 69 | 100.0% |
| All three together | 36.54% | 268 | |
| Everything else | 63.45% | 459 | 45.4% |
The three routes are a large minority, not a majority — 36.5%. The characterisation of each route holds exactly as proposed: software is almost entirely private (2.5% public), teaching is almost entirely government (96.1%), and protective services is 100% public — not one person in that cell works for a private employer. But together they account for just over a third. The premium jobs are more dispersed than the hypothesis assumed.
Not testable here: whether the software workers hold a BCA or B.Sc. IT rather than a B.A. PLFS records no field of study for a non-technical degree. It is the natural reading of a general-degree holder writing code, but this data cannot confirm it, and the note does not assert it.
The long tail
Section titled “The long tail”Every occupation reaching five people, with the smaller cells pooled into one residual row so the column sums to 100:
| Occupation | Share | Cum. | n | Public | Median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Software and application developers, and analysts | 18.30% | 18.3% | 95 | 1% | ₹62,500 |
| All other occupations (41, each under 5 people) | 12.29% | 30.6% | 94 | 44% | — |
| Sales, marketing and development managers | 6.73% | 37.3% | 29 | 6% | ₹60,000 |
| Protective service workers | 6.45% | 43.8% | 69 | 100% | ₹55,681 |
| Finance professionals | 5.33% | 49.1% | 33 | 38% | ₹65,000 |
| Primary school and early childhood teachers | 5.24% | 54.3% | 50 | 95% | ₹55,500 |
| Engineering professionals (excl. electrotechnology) | 5.01% | 59.4% | 38 | 50% | ₹60,000 |
| General office clerks | 4.54% | 63.9% | 37 | 89% | ₹55,000 |
| Professional services managers | 3.72% | 67.6% | 26 | 70% | ₹65,600 |
| Business services and administration managers | 3.10% | 70.7% | 23 | 40% | ₹67,438 |
| Sales, marketing and public relations professionals | 2.86% | 73.6% | 10 | 3% | ₹55,000 |
| Secondary education teachers | 2.65% | 76.2% | 33 | 97% | ₹57,700 |
| Other services managers | 2.41% | 78.6% | 12 | 4% | ₹60,000 |
| Administration professionals | 2.28% | 80.9% | 13 | 28% | ₹55,000 |
| Manufacturing, mining, construction and distribution managers | 1.94% | 82.8% | 10 | 21% | ₹65,000 |
| Medical doctors | 1.87% | 84.7% | 20 | 57% | ₹65,000 |
| ICT service managers | 1.67% | 86.4% | 10 | 9% | ₹60,000 |
| Cashiers and ticket clerks (code 523) | 1.31% | 87.7% | 6 | 100% | ₹55,000 |
| Government regulatory associate professionals | 1.28% | 89.0% | 15 | 100% | ₹62,000 |
| Nursing and midwifery professionals | 1.20% | 90.2% | 10 | 99% | ₹65,000 |
| Tellers and money collectors | 1.14% | 91.3% | 12 | 80% | ₹55,400 |
| Physical and engineering science technicians | 1.07% | 92.4% | 6 | 38% | ₹60,000 |
| Sales and purchasing agents and brokers | 1.07% | 93.5% | 7 | 4% | ₹50,000 |
| Mining, manufacturing and construction supervisors | 0.95% | 94.4% | 7 | 30% | ₹52,000 |
| Legal professionals | 0.87% | 95.3% | 6 | 30% | ₹50,400 |
| Locomotive engine drivers | 0.85% | 96.1% | 12 | 100% | ₹60,000 |
| Legislators and senior officials | 0.82% | 96.9% | 10 | 100% | ₹74,000 |
| Numerical clerks | 0.77% | 97.7% | 9 | 93% | ₹56,500 |
| Electrotechnology engineers | 0.77% | 98.5% | 6 | 17% | ₹65,000 |
| Administrative and specialised secretaries | 0.58% | 99.1% | 6 | 100% | ₹60,000 |
| Administrative associate professionals | 0.56% | 99.6% | 5 | 32% | ₹55,000 |
| Nursing and midwifery associate professionals | 0.40% | 100.0% | 8 | 100% | ₹57,200 |
Software is the single largest destination, and it is one occupation in five. After it the distribution flattens immediately — no other occupation reaches 7%, and it takes ten of them to cover 64%. The tail is genuinely long: 72 distinct occupations, 41 of them with fewer than five people each.
Three things are worth reading off the table rather than the clusters:
- Public and private are two different premium jobs, not one. Software (1% public, ₹62,500) and sales management (6% public) sit alongside protective services, clerks, regulatory officials, locomotive drivers and teachers at 89–100% public. Roughly 45% of the “everything else” block is public sector. For a general degree, the state is the largest single employer of well-paid graduates, but it reaches them through a dozen small doors rather than one big one.
- One row carried no name until now. Code 523 rendered as a bare number because
plfs_dim_ncohad no row for it — the loader dropped every NCO branch with no 8-digit detail, six groups in all. Fixed upstream in external_data_sources#74; it is Cashiers and ticket clerks. Nothing about the figures changed, only the label. - Some of these people are doing technical work without a technical degree — engineering professionals (n=38), electrotechnology engineers (n=6), medical doctors (n=20), nurses (n=10). These are almost certainly misclassifications on the education side rather than the occupation side, and 20 general-degree holders recorded as doctors is a known open question in ASSUMPTIONS.md. They are left in rather than quietly dropped; they are 5% of the rung’s premium jobs and removing them would not change any conclusion here.
- Median wages are compressed — nearly every cell sits between ₹50,000 and ₹67,000. This is a threshold effect, not a finding: the table conditions on ≥₹50,000, so it shows the bottom of each occupation’s distribution, not its centre.
Across a working life
Section titled “Across a working life”Synthetic cohort, not a projection.
| At entry (21–23) | Age 30 | Age 40 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sample n | 15,293 | 9,879 | 4,794 |
| Population | 13.10m | 8.61m | 4.00m |
| — of whom in formal work | 1,008 | 2,198 | 1,470 |
| In formal work | 7.18% | 23.56% | 27.75% |
| Still studying | 30.87% | 1.10% | 0.01% |
| Mean wage | ₹20,566 | ₹29,153 | ₹36,537 |
| Median wage | ₹17,000 | ₹25,000 | ₹35,000 |
Formal employment plateaus after 30 — 23.56% to 27.75%, a gain of four points in a decade. The technical diploma over the same span goes 34.02% to 48.24%. By 40, a general degree holder is barely more than half as likely to hold a formal job as someone with a technical diploma.
Twenty years multiply the mean wage by 1.78×.
Nearly a third are still studying at 21–23, which depresses the entry column.
The same rung at three points in a working life
Section titled “The same rung at three points in a working life”| Life stage | Regular salaried | Of which formal | People |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry | 14.1% | 7.2% | 13.10m |
| Age 30 | 33.2% | 23.6% | 8.61m |
| Age 40 | 36.9% | 27.8% | 4.00m |
Regular salaried is a salaried job of any kind (pas='31'). Formal is the subset that is actually paid and carries a written contract or social security. The difference between the two columns is the informal salaried workforce.
These are three different cohorts, not one cohort ageing. Today’s 40-year-olds finished a different school system in a different labour market from this year’s entrants, so this table shows where each age group stands now. It does not say what today’s entrant will earn at 40.
Entry uses each rung’s own window — three years from that course’s normal completion age; age 30 is ages 29–31 and age 40 is ages 39–41, three-year bands for sample.
What they actually do
Section titled “What they actually do”Job function among those in formal work, rolled up from NCO 2015 three-digit occupation groups by build_job_function.py. NCO orders by skill level before function, so a raw occupation table splits one function across three divisions — software work sits in 251/252, 351/352 and 133. Shares sum to 100; nothing is suppressed.
| Function | Share | People | Public sector | Median wage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clerical & office support | 18.93% | 1.51m | 44.5% | ₹21,000 |
| Sales & marketing | 15.11% | 1.21m | 6.2% | ₹20,000 |
| Finance & accounting | 10.76% | 858k | 12.6% | ₹22,000 |
| Software & IT | 8.47% | 676k | 4.2% | ₹35,000 |
| Engineering, science & technical | 8.36% | 667k | 16.4% | ₹28,000 |
| Teaching & education | 8.07% | 644k | 51.2% | ₹20,000 |
| Skilled trades & production | 7.29% | 582k | 17.3% | ₹17,800 |
| Health & medical | 6.05% | 482k | 55.0% | ₹22,000 |
| Management & business operations | 5.31% | 424k | 22.6% | ₹32,000 |
| Protective services & armed forces | 4.80% | 383k | 81.9% | ₹34,580 |
| Hospitality, personal & care services | 3.37% | 269k | 34.4% | ₹18,000 |
| Transport & logistics | 1.34% | 107k | 30.3% | ₹21,000 |
| Law, public administration & policy | 1.32% | 105k | 85.3% | ₹32,000 |
| Agriculture, forestry & fishing | 0.48% | 39k | 67.0% | ₹28,300 |
| Arts, media, culture & social | 0.33% | 26k | 19.5% | ₹23,770 |
Sample sizes
Section titled “Sample sizes”| Cut | n |
|---|---|
| The rung, ages 21–34 | 57,555 |
| — in formal work | 8,850 |
| Formal, tenure under 1 year | 818 |
| Formal, tenure over 3 years | 4,814 |
| At age 40, in formal work | 1,470 |
| Earning ≥₹50,000 a month | 727 |
The best-measured rung on the ladder. Nothing here is constrained by sample size.
What this rung does not tell you
Section titled “What this rung does not tell you”It cannot be subdivided. Arts, science and commerce are one bucket because PLFS records no field of study for non-technical degrees. Any claim that “B.Com does better than B.A.” is untestable with this data.
The comparison with diplomas is not causal. People who take a technical diploma differ from those who take a general degree. The employment gap is what the two groups look like, not what the qualifications did.
Postgraduates are excluded — 18.0% of this rung’s holders go on to complete one, and they are on rung 11.
Provenance: assumptions governing this note are numbered in ../ASSUMPTIONS.md;
the queries behind every figure are in ../QUERIES.md; every claim’s confidence
grade, and the seven claims this analysis has retracted, are in
../FINDINGS.md. Check a number against FINDINGS before quoting it.