Society
West Asia Crisis: Can Kerala’s Returning Gulf Migrants Find a Future in the Green Economy?
Kerala Gulf migrants face growing uncertainty as the West Asia crisis threatens livelihoods. Can green jobs, reskilling and climate investments provide a sustainable future?
Up to 12 million Indian livelihoods are at risk from the West Asia crisis — Kerala alone accounts for 1.5 to 2 million of them. In the state most built on Gulf money, the jobs coming next don’t match the jobs going away. India’s most literate state is testing whether reskilling, entrepreneurship support and a reimagined green economy can catch its returning workers before they fall through.
When Cinil, who grew up in the hill district of Idukki, boarded his flight home from the Gulf earlier this year, no one had handed him a termination letter. He read the signs instead. For years he had worked in automobile advertising, chasing campaigns for car dealerships across the region — steady, unglamorous work that had financed a life back in Kerala. Then the campaigns got smaller. Clients cut budgets. Contracts that used to renew themselves simply stopped renewing. As the West Asia crisis deepened around him, Cinil made a calculation that hundreds of thousands of Keralites are now quietly making too: better to leave on your own terms than wait to be pushed.
Kerala Gulf Migrants Face an Uncertain Future
For others, there was no such choice to make. “Around 300 to 350 people lost their jobs in a single company in the hospitality sector,” says Baheej, from Kozhikode, a coastal district in Kerala, who has worked in the Gulf for many years. “That means 300 to 350 families were pushed into uncertainty almost overnight.” As tourist arrivals and travel activity declined amid the ongoing crisis, hospitality workers were among the first to feel it. Businesses cut costs to survive, and layoffs followed.
Lijesh’s story, from Malappuram, is a quieter kind of uncertainty. A driver, he has been sent home by his employer on a month of forced leave. He hasn’t told his own family that the leave is compulsory — his two daughters, both still in school, don’t know. “There is a lot of uncertainty,” he tells EdPublica.
Even those still employed are living with a different kind of strain. Workers in oil and gas facilities, particularly refineries, worry that escalating tensions could put critical energy infrastructure at risk. For many, simply reporting to work has become a source of anxiety.
“The ongoing West Asia crisis has affected almost every industry to varying degrees. However, the sectors most significantly impacted in terms of employment and business continuity are Oil & Gas, Construction, Hospitality, Facility Management, Aviation, Logistics, Manufacturing, Shipping and related service industries. The greatest challenges are supply chain disruptions, rising energy costs, project delays and reduced business activity,” said Suresh Kumar Madhusudhanan, a Mumbai-based veteran of the global human resource industry and Managing Director of Seagull International, to EdPublica.
Yet the picture isn’t uniformly bleak — at least not yet, and not for everyone. Net remittances from the region to India rose to $16 billion this April, the second month of the conflict, up 70% over the same period last year, according to data presented by the Union Finance Ministry in its latest report. Cinil’s story and Baheej’s exist alongside that number, not despite it: money is still flowing home even as jobs disappear, a lag that officials and economists are watching closely for signs of how long it can hold.
What Happens to Kerala?
For more than five decades, migration to the Gulf has shaped Kerala’s economy. In districts such as Malappuram — Lijesh’s home district — Kozhikode, where Baheej is from, and Thrissur, remittances have financed homes, education, healthcare and small businesses, woven into the fabric of everyday life rather than sitting apart from it. Idukki, where Cinil is from, has historically sent far fewer workers to the Gulf than the state’s traditional migration belt along the coast — a sign that the crisis’s reach is not confined to the districts usually associated with it.
According to the Kerala Migration Survey (KMS) 2023, the state received ₹2.17 lakh crore in inward remittances that year, with 80.5% of its emigrants living in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.
A new study by IPE Global, an international development consultancy, puts a number on the exposure this creates. The West Asia crisis could put 10 to 12 million livelihoods across India at risk, the report estimates. Kerala alone accounts for 1.5 to 2 million of them — behind Uttar Pradesh (3.5 to 4 million) and Bihar (2 to 2.5 million), but still among the states most exposed. (The report’s estimates are built from a triangulated synthesis of migration and remittance data from the Ministry of External Affairs and the RBI, cross-referenced with state-wise sectoral employment patterns, rather than new primary surveys — a methodology the authors say reflects genuine uncertainty in how the crisis will actually unfold.)
“The movement of migrants has always remained relatively steady. Every year, around 2.5 to 3 lakh Keralites migrate to GCC countries, while nearly 1.5 lakh return. We saw similar situations during the 1990 Gulf War, the 2008 global financial crisis, the return of workers from Saudi Arabia following labour reforms in 2013, and again during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our system is seasoned and proven to manage such situations,” said Ajith Kolassery, former CEO of Norka Roots, the Kerala government agency tasked with the welfare and rehabilitation of the state’s Non-Resident Keralites.
“Kerala’s heavy dependence on the Gulf makes it particularly vulnerable. A prolonged West Asia crisis could reduce overseas jobs, cut remittances and bring more expatriates back home, putting additional pressure on the state’s economy. Kerala must respond by diversifying overseas employment, strengthening skills, creating more jobs at home and promoting entrepreneurship,” Madhusudhanan said.
The Green Transition Offers Hope
The IPE Global report argues that the crisis presents an opening to accelerate India’s green transition — and that the money to do it largely already exists inside the government’s own scheme architecture. By converging existing programmes such as PM-KUSUM (India’s mega solar initiative that turns farmers from energy consumers into energy producers by subsidizing solar pumps and rural solar power plants), the National Green Hydrogen Mission, Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes and the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme, the report estimates India could unlock USD 42–53 billion (₹4–5 lakh crore) without new outlay.
If implemented effectively, the report projects these initiatives could generate 35 million green jobs by 2047 and contribute to a USD 15 trillion green economy by 2070, spread across agriculture, renewable energy and industry:
- Agriculture: Reframing PM-KUSUM as a “Farmer-as-Energy-Producer” programme — letting farmers sell surplus solar power back to the grid — could create 15 lakh (1.5 million) jobs on its own, add 50,000 MW of agri-solar capacity, raise farmers’ annual incomes by ₹25,000 to ₹40,000, and cut roughly 70 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent a year. The agriculture sector as a whole is projected to generate 6 to 7 million jobs.
- Energy: Hitting India’s 500 GW renewable energy target could generate 3.4 million jobs, while the National Green Hydrogen Mission — backed by up to ₹8 lakh crore in mobilised investment — could add another 1.5 to 2 million, for 5 to 8 million jobs sector-wide.
- Industry: A proposed National Green Steel Mission, decarbonising India’s 140-million-tonne steel sector, could help preserve the country’s USD 8 billion steel export market from EU carbon border tariffs (CBAM) while avoiding 55 million tonnes of CO2e annually. Alongside a Green Transformation Mission for India’s 63 million MSMEs, the industrial sector’s job potential runs past 20 million.
Abinash Mohanty, Head of the Climate Change and Sustainability Practice at IPE Global and the study’s lead author, frames the numbers starkly: with 85% of India’s crude oil imported and 10 to 12 million livelihoods exposed to a single geopolitical shock, he says, “the fragility is real. But so is the opportunity.”
The scale is real too — but so is the catch. The jobs the report says are coming are not, for the most part, the jobs currently being lost.
The Jobs Being Lost Are Not the Jobs Being Created
The workers most vulnerable to the current crisis are largely construction workers, hospitality staff, drivers and domestic workers employed across the Gulf. The jobs driving India’s green transition require a very different skill set.
Solar installation, battery manufacturing, power systems, renewable supply chains and green hydrogen production demand technical qualifications that many returning Gulf migrants have never had the chance to acquire.
Green hydrogen illustrates the gap sharply. The report estimates the sector could create 1.5 to 2 million jobs, but these roles require expertise in electrochemistry, fuel cell technology and industrial-scale systems management. For someone who has spent years working in a hotel, on a construction site or in facility management, moving directly into these sectors is unlikely without substantial reskilling.
A Significant Geographic Mismatch
The mismatch isn’t just about skills — it’s about geography. Rajasthan has the potential to generate around 5 million green jobs by 2047 while facing only about 0.5 million livelihoods at risk from the West Asia crisis. Gujarat could generate 4.5 million green jobs against just 0.28 million at risk. Tamil Nadu’s exposure (roughly 1 to 1.2 million livelihoods at risk) is dwarfed by its green jobs potential of 3.5 million.
Kerala sits at the opposite end of that spread. Despite being among the states most exposed to the Gulf economy, its estimated green jobs potential is only around one million — roughly half its at-risk livelihoods.
The mismatch is rooted in geography and infrastructure. Rajasthan and Gujarat have abundant land, large renewable energy parks and heavy industrial investment. Kerala has limited land for utility-scale renewable projects and few openings for large-scale green manufacturing.
Kerala’s Gulf Paradox: When Prosperity Becomes a Liability
Abinash Mohanty, the study’s lead author, explained to EdPublica why Kerala stands apart from the other states examined in the report.
“There is a peculiar irony embedded in Kerala’s economic story,” he said. “For four decades, the desert sands of the Gulf have nourished the rice fields of Malabar, remittances flowing back to fund concrete houses, college fees, and gold jewellery, transforming the state’s social fabric in the process. Today, Kerala still draws nearly a fifth of India’s entire remittance pie, even as its Gulf-bound workforce has shrunk sharply over the past decade. It is a state living off the echo of a migration boom that has already peaked.”
“Herein lies the mismatch,” Mohanty continued. “The IPE Global study reveals that India’s green transition — its solar parks, hydrogen valleys, and battery gigafactories — is gravitating naturally towards Rajasthan’s deserts and Tamil Nadu’s coastlines, not Kerala’s backwaters. Kerala, like a seasoned sailor stranded as the tide recedes, finds itself with deep economic dependence but a comparatively shallow green jobs harbour to dock in.”
“The solution cannot be importing Rajasthan’s solar playbook wholesale,” he said. “Kerala must instead lean into what it already possesses: a highly literate, internationally exposed workforce. Its future lies not in manufacturing solar panels, but in becoming India’s hub for green services — climate fintech, renewable energy project management, marine and coastal resilience engineering, and the skilled re-export of its own returning diaspora as consultants to other Gulf-exposed states. Kerala’s comparative advantage was always human capital, not hectares of sunlight — and that, fortunately, travels well.”
A Different Transition for Kerala
For Kerala, the transition is unlikely to mirror Rajasthan’s or Gujarat’s. Instead, sectors such as the blue economy, sustainable fisheries, marine industries, eco-tourism and green services may offer opportunities better aligned with the state’s geography and workforce. Alongside these, returning migrants will need structured reskilling programmes that connect training directly to employment.
Even some of the report’s own recommendations run into Kerala-specific limits. The report proposes expanding PM-KUSUM so farmers can earn by selling surplus solar power to the grid — but eligibility under Component A generally requires 3–4 acres of land, clear ownership records and proximity to an electricity substation, conditions that are far harder to meet in a state of small, fragmented landholdings.
Kolassery believes Kerala should focus first on helping returning migrants find immediate livelihoods before chasing long-term structural change. “NORKA Roots has already demonstrated that this can be done,” he said, pointing to the NORKA Department Project for Returned Emigrants (NDPREM), which offers a 15% capital subsidy, a 3% interest subsidy for the first four years of timely loan repayment, and bank loans ranging from ₹1 lakh to ₹30 lakh, alongside entrepreneurship training and technical guidance through the Centre for Management Development.
“Our immediate priority should be short-term absorption. Kerala may not have the industrial advantages of larger states, but it has a knowledge-based economy and a workforce with international exposure,” he said. Rather than viewing returning migrants as a burden, he argues, Kerala should channel their experience into entrepreneurship and niche industries while courting new investment. “The Middle East’s investment landscape has shattered due to security concerns. This is the right time for India, especially Kerala, to position itself as a safe destination for investment. If we provide the right support, we can convert this challenge into an opportunity,” he said.
What’s Actually Working — and What Isn’t Yet
“The recommendations presented in the report demonstrate that climate action is not merely an environmental obligation — it is a pathway to economic transformation, energy sovereignty, livelihood security and long-term prosperity,” said Ashwajit Singh, Founder and Managing Director of IPE Global.
That pathway isn’t purely theoretical in Kerala. NDPREM, the state’s existing returnee-support scheme, already provides a working template — a 15% capital subsidy, a 3% interest subsidy for the first four years of timely repayment, loans up to ₹30 lakh, and hands-on entrepreneurship training through the Centre for Management Development. It is, in effect, a smaller-scale version of what the IPE Global report says the country needs at national scale: existing institutional capacity, redirected rather than rebuilt from scratch. Kolassery points to it as proof that Kerala doesn’t need to wait for green jobs to materialise before it starts absorbing returning workers — it can start now, with tools already in hand.
But the template has real limits, and they mirror the gaps in the national scheme architecture it’s modelled on. NDPREM works best for migrants with capital and a business idea already in mind; it does little for the hospitality and construction workers Baheej describes, who need wage employment, not a loan. And the state’s proposed long-term bet — blue economy jobs, sustainable fisheries, eco-tourism — remains mostly aspirational, without the scheme convergence or funding commitments that agriculture and energy have already secured nationally through PM-KUSUM and the Green Hydrogen Mission.
For Cinil, back in Kerala and weighing what comes next, the choice in front of him is a narrower version of the one facing policymakers: use what exists now, or wait for something better suited to arrive. What would close that gap, according to both the report and Kerala’s own migration officials, is not a single scheme but three things moving together — reskilling programmes that lead directly into named jobs rather than general training, financing that reaches wage-seekers as well as entrepreneurs, and faster investment in the blue-economy and green-services sectors the state is actually positioned to build. None of that requires new institutions to invent. It requires the ones already in place — NORKA Roots, PM-KUSUM, state industrial policy — to move at the speed the crisis demands. As opportunities in the Gulf grow more uncertain, the test for Kerala’s green transition won’t be how large the numbers get by 2047, but whether workers like Cinil find a next job before the wait becomes permanent.
Society
79 Years After Independence: Is India Investing Enough in Science and Technology?
India’s R&D spending remains below 1% of GDP despite rising research output and patents. Is the country investing enough to achieve technological independence by 2047?
India’s research and development (R & D) spending has more than doubled in absolute terms, but R&D intensity remains below 1% of GDP. As India approaches 2047, the bigger question is whether its investment in science is sufficient to build the technologies and industries needed for technological independence.
When India became independent in 1947, the country had only 17 universities and 636 colleges serving about 2.38 lakh students. Literacy was around 14%. Nearly eight decades later, India has built a vastly larger education and research system. The country had 1,168 universities, 45,473 colleges and 12,002 standalone higher-education institutions in 2021–22, according to the All India Survey on Higher Education.
But as India looks towards its centenary of Independence in 2047, its scientific ambitions are running into a persistent question: is the country investing enough in research and development to build the technologies it will need? India’s R&D spending has increased sharply in absolute terms. Yet as a share of the economy, it has remained below 1%.
India’s R&D Spending Remains Below 1% of GDP
India’s gross expenditure on research and development rose from ₹60,197 crore in 2010–11 to ₹1,27,381 crore in 2020–21, according to the Department of Science and Technology. However, R&D expenditure as a share of GDP was 0.64% in 2020–21. The corresponding figure was 0.66% in both 2018–19 and 2019–20.
This means that while India’s research spending more than doubled over the decade, R&D intensity remained at roughly two-thirds of 1% of GDP. The latest detailed official figure available for India is therefore 0.64% for 2020–21. WIPO’s Global Innovation Index 2025 uses an R&D intensity figure of 0.65%, based on 2020 data. One of the most commonly used measures of a country’s research effort is R&D intensity—the amount a country spends on research and development as a percentage of its gross domestic product (GDP). It allows researchers to compare the relative priority given to R&D across economies of very different sizes.
There is currently no single internationally comparable R&D figure for every country for 2026. UNESCO’s new global R&D data collection is still underway, with the resulting data scheduled for release in November 2026.
Government Still Funds the Larger Share
The issue is not only how much India spends on R&D, but who pays for it. Government accounted for 59.2% of India’s gross expenditure on R&D in 2020–21, while business enterprises accounted for 40.8%, according to DST data.
The figures point to India’s continuing dependence on public funding for research. That becomes significant as research moves into areas such as semiconductors, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, advanced materials and clean energy. These fields can require expensive infrastructure, specialised equipment and long development cycles before research produces commercially viable technologies.
Increasing private-sector participation is therefore likely to be as important as increasing the overall R&D budget.
India is Producing More Patents and Research
Despite its relatively low R&D intensity, India has become a significant contributor to global research and innovation. The latest Nature Index data, covering April 2025 to March 2026, records 3,565 research articles from India in the journals tracked by the index.
Patent activity has also grown rapidly. Indian applicants filed 76,470 patent applications worldwide in 2024, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization. This was a 19.2% increase over 2023 and placed India sixth among origins for worldwide patent applications.
The growth marks the sixth consecutive year of double-digit growth in patent applications from India-based applicants, according to WIPO. But patent filings do not necessarily mean that inventions reach the market.
A patent can protect an invention without it becoming a commercially manufactured product. For research to generate wider economic value, it has to move through several stages—from discovery to patent, prototype, product and eventually large-scale deployment. That transition remains one of the important challenges for India’s innovation ecosystem.
India Ranks Higher on Innovation Than Its R&D Spending Suggests
India’s relatively low R&D intensity has not prevented it from performing strongly on broader measures of innovation. WIPO’s Global Innovation Index 2025 ranked India 38th among 139 economies. India was also ranked first among lower-middle-income economies and first in Central and Southern Asia.
WIPO identifies India as an innovation overperformer, citing strengths including ICT services exports, venture-capital activity and the country’s ability to translate scientific knowledge into commercial impact. The contrast is significant.
India is generating considerable innovation despite spending a relatively small share of its GDP on R&D. But that does not necessarily mean that the existing level of investment is enough to support the next generation of technologies. As research becomes more capital-intensive, countries seeking technological leadership require sustained investment in infrastructure, specialised researchers and long-term development.
China Spends Four Times India’s Share
The gap becomes clearer when India is compared with major research economies. WIPO’s latest internationally comparable estimates for 2024 put R&D intensity at 6.33% of GDP in Israel and 5.32% in South Korea. Japan and the United States were both at 3.45%, while Germany stood at 3.11%.
China’s R&D intensity reached 2.65%. By comparison, India’s latest available figure is about 0.65%. China therefore spends roughly four times India’s share of GDP on R&D. Other emerging economies also show different levels of research intensity. WIPO estimates Brazil at 1.15%, Thailand at 1.16%, Türkiye at 1.42%, Vietnam at 0.42%, the Philippines at 0.32% and Indonesia at 0.28%.
The figures are not all based on the same data year, making direct comparisons imperfect. However, the broad difference between India and the world’s leading research economies remains clear.
Government Changing The Funding Model
India has begun introducing policies aimed at expanding research funding and encouraging greater industry participation. The Anusandhan National Research Foundation was established through legislation in 2023, with a planned five-year outlay of ₹50,000 crore for 2023–28.
The foundation is intended to strengthen research across universities, colleges and research institutions and encourage collaboration between academia, industry and government.
In July 2025, the government also approved a ₹1 lakh crore Research, Development and Innovation Scheme. The scheme is intended to encourage private-sector investment in high-risk and high-impact R&D, particularly in strategic and emerging areas.
The initiatives reflect an attempt to address a longstanding problem: India’s research system needs greater private-sector participation if overall R&D investment is to rise substantially.
What Would Higher R&D Spending Change?
There is no fixed relationship between R&D spending and the number of patents, papers or technologies a country will produce. Reaching a particular percentage of GDP cannot guarantee scientific breakthroughs.
But higher sustained investment could expand the country’s research capacity. Moving from 0.64% to 1% of GDP would represent an increase of about 56% relative to India’s current R&D intensity. It could provide greater resources for research grants, laboratory infrastructure, doctoral training and advanced equipment.
At 2%, India would move much closer to China’s current R&D intensity and have a substantially larger pool of resources for research in areas such as biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, AI, semiconductors and clean energy. At 3%, India would enter the range of several major research economies. The outcome, however, would depend on how effectively that money is used.
From Research Papers to Technologies
For India, the next phase of science policy may therefore need to focus as much on the movement of research into the economy as on increasing research output. Universities need stronger research infrastructure and stable funding. Public laboratories need effective technology-transfer mechanisms. Companies need stronger incentives to conduct R&D domestically. Researchers need access to advanced equipment and long-term funding.
Success could also be measured through indicators beyond publications and patents: technologies licensed to companies, university spin-offs, industry-funded research, prototypes entering production and revenue generated from publicly supported research. This is particularly important for technologies that could shape India’s economic future.
A semiconductor process developed in an Indian laboratory, a new pharmaceutical platform, an energy-storage technology or an agricultural innovation can have an economic impact far beyond the research paper that first describes it. At the same time, basic research cannot be judged only by immediate commercial returns. Some of the technologies that eventually transform economies begin as discoveries with no obvious market.
India therefore faces a two-part challenge: expand research that pushes scientific boundaries while building the institutions and industrial capacity needed to convert discoveries into technologies.
The Science Challenge India Faces in 2047
The scientific challenge India faced in 1947 was largely about building capacity. The country needed universities, laboratories, trained researchers and institutions capable of supporting scientific inquiry. Much of that foundation now exists.
The challenge approaching 2047 is different. India is no longer simply trying to establish a scientific system. It is trying to use that system to compete in technologies that will determine economic and strategic strength. That will require more sustained investment, greater participation from industry and stronger links between research institutions and the market.
As India approaches 100 years of Independence, the question is therefore no longer only how much science the country produces. It is whether India can invest enough in that science—and build the systems around it—to turn research into technologies, technologies into industries and scientific capability into technological independence.
Editor’s Note
Dipin Damodharan, Co-founder & Editor-in-Chief, EdPublica
South Korea offers an instructive comparison. R&D intensity—the share of a country’s GDP devoted to research and development—is not, by itself, a guarantee of economic transformation. But South Korea’s experience shows what sustained investment can achieve when it is accompanied by strong university research, private-sector participation and technological development.
UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics reported that South Korea’s R&D expenditure had reached 4.03% of GDP in 2011, compared with 0.81% for India at the time. The private sector accounted for a substantial share of South Korea’s R&D expenditure, highlighting the importance of industry participation alongside public investment.
The lesson for India is therefore not simply to spend more. It is to build an ecosystem in which increased R&D funding translates into research capacity, technologies, companies and productive industries.
Climate
From Fighting Water to Saving It: The Netherlands Faces a Growing Drought Challenge
A land built to keep water out is now struggling to keep enough of it in — forcing a world leader in water management to rethink its infrastructure
The Netherlands built its global reputation by keeping water out. Now, longer dry spells and intensifying heatwaves are forcing the country to confront a very different problem: how to keep enough fresh water in the landscape. From greenhouse agriculture to homes built on wooden foundation piles, the Netherlands drought challenge is exposing the limits of infrastructure designed primarily for flood protection.
When people think of the Netherlands, the images that come to mind are windmills, tulip fields and the great sea walls that have kept the ocean at bay for centuries. The Dutch built their reputation, and much of their nation, on mastering water — pumping it away, holding it back, and reclaiming land from the sea to build a prosperous country on ground that, by rights, shouldn’t exist. Yet beneath that carefully engineered landscape, the Netherlands is now facing an unfamiliar problem: it is running out of fresh water.
As repeated summer heatwaves sweep across Western Europe, Dutch water authorities say they have reached the limit of what engineering can do. In several regions, officials have exhausted every standard measure available to them and are left with what amounts to a last resort — waiting, and hoping, for rain.
Netherlands Drought Challenge: From Floods to Water Scarcity
To understand how a country famous for its rainfall and rivers has arrived at this point, it helps to look at how the land itself was designed. For generations, the Dutch water system had one job: get excess water out to sea as fast as possible, to prevent flooding. That same efficiency has become a liability as weather patterns shift towards longer dry spells and more intense heat. The pressure peaks in late summer, when temperatures regularly cross 35°C and water evaporates faster than rainfall can replace it.
The consequences of shrinking water reserves go well beyond the daily weather report. They are already reaching into the economy, and into the foundations — quite literally — of Dutch homes.
Thousands of historic Dutch houses stand on wooden foundation piles. When groundwater levels drop, those piles are exposed to air and begin to rot. On clay and peat soils, the ground shrinks unevenly, pulling foundations down and cracking brick walls
Economic Strain and Sinking Homes
In Westland, the heart of Dutch greenhouse horticulture, the Delfland water authority has banned growers from drawing irrigation water from local ditches and canals — the first such ban in its history. According to the growers’ umbrella body Glastuinbouw Nederland, the ban affects around 150 commercial growers, with potential damages running as high as €150 million.
At the same time, a quieter crisis is unfolding beneath people’s homes. Thousands of historic Dutch houses stand on wooden foundation piles. When groundwater levels drop, those piles are exposed to air and begin to rot. On clay and peat soils, the ground shrinks unevenly, pulling foundations down and cracking brick walls. The Council for the Living Environment and Infrastructure estimates that close to half a million buildings across the country could show foundation damage by 2035, with repair costs reaching as much as €54 billion.
From Water Battle to Water Sponge
This reality is forcing a fundamental shift in how the Netherlands manages its resources. For centuries, Dutch policy was simple: fight the water, and push it away. Today, water authorities are engaged in a delicate balancing act, trying to save every drop using canal locks and storage basins. But holding onto existing water can only do so much once the rain stops altogether.
Long-term resilience will require redesigning the landscape itself. Rather than treating rainwater as a threat to be flushed out to sea, experts increasingly argue that the Netherlands needs to function more like a giant sponge — capturing heavy winter rain and storing it safely to survive the dry summer months that are becoming the norm.
A Lesson Beyond Borders
What is unfolding in the Netherlands carries a lesson well beyond it. If a nation this experienced in water engineering is struggling to keep pace with a changing climate, it says something about how quickly conditions can outrun even the most sophisticated infrastructure. As riverbeds stay low and the dry spells drag on, the Dutch find themselves in an unfamiliar position for a country built on water: waiting for the skies to open.
Society
Urban Women Hit by a Stark 8.7% Unemployment Rate
India’s unemployment rate rose to 5.4% in April–June 2026, but the sharpest divide was among urban workers: women faced 8.7% unemployment, while only 22.8% were employed compared with 70.7% of men.
India’s urban labour market continues to show a persistent gender imbalance, even as overall employment trends remain relatively stable. While unemployment rates are often used as the primary indicator of job stress, they do not fully capture who is able to access work in the first place.
India’s latest employment data reveal a divide larger than the headline unemployment rate. In April–June 2026, 8.7% of urban women aged 15 years and above who were in the labour force were unemployed, compared with 6.1% of urban men. But the sharper gap lies in employment itself: only 22.8% of urban women were working, compared with 70.7% of urban men.
The figures come as India’s overall unemployment rate rose to 5.4%, from 5.0% in January–March, according to the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) Quarterly Bulletin released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. Rural unemployment rose from 4.3% to 4.8%, while urban unemployment remained almost unchanged at 6.7%.
For urban women, unemployment actually fell from 9.1% to 8.7% over the quarter. Yet it remains considerably higher than the rate for men.
That makes the story less about a sudden rise in female unemployment and more about a persistent question: why are so few urban women participating in paid work?
The Bigger Divide is Participation
The unemployment rate counts people who are working or actively seeking and available for work. Those outside the labour force are not counted as unemployed.
That distinction is crucial. The urban Worker Population Ratio (WPR) stood at 46.8% overall in April–June. But the gender gap was stark: 70.7% for men and just 22.8% for women.
The nearly 48-percentage-point difference means that looking only at the 8.7% female unemployment rate captures only part of the employment problem. India can therefore have a relatively stable urban unemployment rate while still having a large pool of women who are not participating in the labour market.
Urban Jobs are Changing, But the Gender Gap Remains
The urban labour market itself is not showing signs of a broad collapse. Urban unemployment edged up only marginally from 6.6% to 6.7% during the quarter. At the same time, the share of urban workers in regular wage or salaried employment increased from 48.9% to 49.3%.
Urban employment is also dominated by services. The tertiary sector accounted for 62% of urban employment in April–June, compared with 61.7% a year earlier.
Yet these shifts have not translated into comparable employment outcomes for women.
Rural Unemployment Rose Faster
The national increase in unemployment was partly driven by rural India. Rural unemployment rose by 0.5 percentage points, compared with a 0.1-point increase in urban areas. At the same time, rural employment continued to shift away from agriculture: agriculture’s share fell from 55.8% to 52.9%, while the secondary sector rose from 22.6% to 24.4%.
The figures point to an economy undergoing changes in where and how people work, even as access to employment remains uneven.
Women’s Participation Also Fell
The gender gap extends beyond cities. Overall female labour-force participation declined from 34.7% in January–March to 33.2% in April–June. The overall LFPR for people aged 15 and above also fell, from 55.5% to 54.6%.
The latest figures should not be interpreted as proof that women simply lost jobs. LFPR measures participation in the labour force, while WPR measures actual employment.
But together, the indicators highlight a persistent challenge: India’s employment story cannot be understood through unemployment alone.
The Question of Gender Gap
The PLFS does not establish why urban women participate in the labour market at much lower rates than men. Factors such as childcare, household responsibilities, transport, workplace conditions, safety and access to suitable jobs require separate evidence and reporting.
What the data do establish is the scale of the divide. Urban female unemployment is 8.7%, compared with 6.1% for men. But the much larger gap is in actual employment: 22.8% of urban women were working, against 70.7% of urban men.
As India’s urban economy becomes increasingly service-led and regular salaried employment expands, the central employment question is no longer only how many jobs are being created. It is also who is able to enter the workforce and stay in it.
-
Math3 weeks agoThe 2026 Fields Medals: Four Proofs, Four Decades-Old Problems Solved
-
Climate2 weeks ago
After Kerala’s Deadliest Landslide, the Hardest Thing to Rebuild Was Childhood
-
Space & Physics3 months ago
India Semiconductor Mission: ‘It’s Not About Fabs. It’s About Building An Entire Ecosystem’
-
Climate2 months ago
The Climate World Cup? How Climate Change Could Affect Player Performance at the 2026 World Cup
-
Society1 month ago
What Is Civilisational Diplomacy? Understanding India’s Newest Foreign Policy Tool
-
Society2 months ago
From Bell Labs to the Classroom: A Second Career in Teaching
-
Space & Physics2 months ago
Engineers Develop Dual-Mode Propulsion System for Next-Generation Small Satellites
-
Sustainability1 month ago
Sharing Over Shopping: How Kerala’s Swap House Is Modelling a Different Way to Consume
