Gen Z's 375M-strong cohort reshapes India's workforce and markets

Shukla, who has spent more than three decades designing large-scale household surveys including the ICE360 series, argues the tension is less a conflict between generations than a mismatch between 21st-century aspirations and 20th-century institutions. The same pattern played out with earlier cohorts, he notes: the generation shaped by the 1990s reforms was accused of excessive materialism, and the pioneers of India's IT revolution were dismissed as chasing foreign dreams. Each eventually expanded India's development frontiers.

What is different this time is the speed of the technology cycle. Gen Z lives simultaneously in multiple worlds: it learns from global universities, collaborates across borders, follows international creators, celebrates Indian festivals and speaks several languages. Shukla reads this not as a weakening of identity but as an expansion of influence, a cohort that is deeply Indian while naturally global.

For investors, the read-through runs through consumption patterns, education technology, financial services and the broader digitization of the economy. A generation that discovers products on Instagram and compares four options before buying is a generation that rewards brands with strong digital distribution and punishes those without it. The same cohort is entering the workforce with AI already embedded in its daily routine, which has implications for productivity, wage growth and the kinds of skills employers will need to pay for.

The policy dimension is equally material. A mature democracy depends on young citizens who think for themselves and question authority responsibly, Shukla writes. Access to information does not produce wisdom by itself; scientific temper requires evidence to prevail over emotion and reason over misinformation. That is a warning for political parties and platforms alike: a generation that makes decisions after comparing alternatives is harder to mobilise on identity alone.

Shukla's message to institutions is straightforward. India's demographic dividend will only materialise if schools, universities and workplaces adapt to what Gen Z actually wants, not what an earlier generation assumes it wants. The cohort is not seeking instant gratification, he argues; it is seeking meaningful work, continuous learning and financial independence. The institutions that figure out how to deliver those will capture the demographic dividend. The ones that do not will watch the cohort build around them.