Rung 12 — Postgraduate, other technical
1.64 million people aged 21–34. 47.30% hold a regular salaried job, of which 37.26% of the rung is formal work.
Who is counted
Section titled “Who is counted”| Filter | Value |
|---|---|
release_id |
calendar_2025 |
visit |
V1 |
gedu_lvl |
13 — postgraduate |
tedu_lvl |
02 agriculture, 05 crafts, 06 other subjects |
age |
21–34 |
Sample: 1,836 people across 1,417 first-stage units, representing 1.64 million. Overwhelmingly
code 06, the residual “other subjects” category PLFS never defines — the postgraduate counterpart
of rung 09, which is substantially teaching and IT.
What they are doing
Section titled “What they are doing”| Share | People | |
|---|---|---|
| Formal work | 37.26% | 612k |
| Informal wage work | 8.54% | 140k |
| Self-employed, earning | 7.29% | 120k |
| Studying | 4.26% | 70k |
| Unemployed, seeking | 19.70% | 324k |
| Domestic duties | 16.20% | 266k |
Unemployment of 19.70% is the highest on the entire ladder, above rung 09’s 17.87%. A professional master’s outside engineering and medicine buys a long search — but it does lift employment well above a general master’s 25.57%.
Gender
Section titled “Gender”| Share of rung | Formal work | Domestic duties | Median wage | People | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Male | 43.9% | 50.74% | 0.01% | ₹30,000 | 720k |
| Female | 56.1% | 26.73% | 28.85% | ₹25,000 | 922k |
A 1.9× employment gap on a majority-female rung.
What formal work pays
Section titled “What formal work pays”| Tenure | n | p25 | Median | p75 | ≥₹50k |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 1 year | 43 | ₹18,000 | ₹25,000 | ₹34,890 | 4.3% |
| 1 to 3 years | 201 | ₹16,000 | ₹25,000 | ₹40,000 | 11.4% |
| Over 3 years | 372 | ₹19,900 | ₹33,000 | ₹48,000 | 21.0% |
Median rises 1.32×. The entry cell holds 43 people — below the 50 this analysis elsewhere treats as a floor — so read that row as indicative.
Across a working life
Section titled “Across a working life”| At entry (23–25) | Age 30 | Age 40 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sample n | 360 | 446 | 366 |
| Population | 328k | 351k | 340k |
| — in formal work | 78 | 162 | 202 |
| In formal work | 29.17% | 40.81% | 60.03% |
| Mean wage | ₹27,988 | ₹38,369 | ₹49,376 |
Formal employment doubles from entry to 40 — a steeper climb than any other postgraduate rung.
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 | 38.6% | 29.2% | 328k |
| Age 30 | 50.2% | 40.8% | 351k |
| Age 40 | 65.0% | 60.0% | 340k |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teaching & education | 36.43% | 223k | 56.6% | ₹28,000 |
| Sales & marketing | 13.71% | 84k | 6.6% | ₹25,000 |
| Management & business operations | 12.39% | 76k | 13.3% | ₹40,000 |
| Software & IT | 9.78% | 60k | 2.8% | ₹42,000 |
| Finance & accounting | 7.90% | 48k | 1.3% | ₹24,000 |
| Clerical & office support | 7.87% | 48k | 58.5% | ₹25,000 |
| Engineering, science & technical | 4.15% | 25k | 13.6% | ₹27,600 |
| Law, public administration & policy | 1.63% | 10k | 73.0% | ₹25,000 |
| Protective services & armed forces | 1.44% | 8,791 | 100.0% | ₹30,500 |
| Skilled trades & production | 1.39% | 8,486 | 16.6% | ₹19,200 |
| Health & medical | 1.37% | 8,398 | 46.7% | ₹20,000 |
| Hospitality, personal & care services | 1.21% | 7,431 | 44.5% | ₹16,000 |
| Arts, media, culture & social | 0.55% | 3,396 | 0.0% | ₹15,000 |
| Agriculture, forestry & fishing | 0.17% | 1,019 | 0.0% | ₹28,000 |
Sample sizes
Section titled “Sample sizes”| Cut | n |
|---|---|
| The rung, 21–34 | 1,836 |
| — in formal work | 616 |
| Formal, tenure under 1 year | 43 |
| Earning ≥₹50,000 a month | 115 |
What this rung does not tell you
Section titled “What this rung does not tell you”It is a residual category, not a field. “Other subjects” is undefined in PLFS, and this rung is too small to read its occupation mix reliably.
Selection, not causation.
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.