With barely fifteen years left of its demographic dividend, India faces a stark possibility: growing old before it grows rich. Millions remain unemployed, underemployed, or trapped in precarious, low-quality work signaling a crisis that cannot be ignored.

India Out of Work is a powerful and urgent examination of why India must rapidly accelerate economic growth and what it will take to become a self-sufficient, prosperous nation before this window closes.

Drawing on rigorous research and real-world data, Santosh Mehrotra and Jajati K. Parida unpack the structural challenges holding India back from rural distress and weak job creation to the fragile realities of the ‘new economy’. They argue that India must sustain 9% annual growth and create 350 million non-farm jobs by 2055 to secure its future.