A COMPOSITE MEASURE, BUILT FROM THE REPORT'S OWN THROUGHLINE

The Readiness Index

Concern is fueling readiness, and momentum builds on itself. Rather than reading concern, empowerment, and action as three separate stats, the Readiness Index combines them into a single 0–100 score — comparable across states, genders, ages, and occupations.

01

How the score is built

Three inputs, each normalized to a 0–100 scale, averaged with equal weight. Access and emotional-wellbeing measures deliberately sit outside the score — they're circumstantial (whether a park exists nearby), not a trait of the respondent, so folding them in would blur what "readiness" actually measures.

CONCERN
8.2 / 10
tree-loss reaction scale
+
EMPOWERMENT
8.4 / 10
self-rated agency scale
+
ACTION
91.2%
took ≥1 real action
=
READINESS SCORE
85.6
national average

Note: the Action input here uses the strict definition (took at least one action, excluding the self-contradictory "never + also selected an action" responses) rather than the headline 88% figure, since it's the cleaner basis for a comparative score. See the methodology notes for what that changes.

02

Readiness by state

The 20 states with a sample large enough to report individually (n≥100). The remaining 14 states/UTs, with smaller samples, are grouped into a single caveated figure below rather than reported one by one.

1West Bengal
88.0n=1,222
2Uttar Pradesh
87.1n=1,627
3Uttarakhand
87.1n=118
4Delhi
85.7n=1,003
5Punjab
85.7n=176
6Haryana
85.7n=285
7Jharkhand
85.6n=255
8Rajasthan
85.5n=634
9Bihar
85.2n=680
10Madhya Pradesh
85.1n=509
11Telangana
85.0n=277
12Assam
85.0n=175
13Andhra Pradesh
84.7n=251
14Karnataka
84.5n=381
15Maharashtra
84.4n=882
16Odisha
84.2n=343
17Gujarat
84.1n=428
18Chhattisgarh
84.0n=157
19Tamil Nadu
83.2n=167
20Kerala
81.0n=109
Other states & UTs
84.3n=321

The spread is narrow — 7 points separate the highest (West Bengal, 88.0) from the lowest reportable state (Kerala, 81.0). Readiness looks less like a regional divide and more like a near-national baseline, with action rates driving most of the state-to-state movement more than concern or empowerment do.

03

Readiness by gender

Male
86.3
n=6,061 · concern 79.7 · empowerment 83.7 · action 95.4
Female
85.0
n=3,915 · concern 83.4 · empowerment 84.5 · action 87.1
Non-binary
76.5
n=24 · small sample, read with caution

Men score higher overall, but the composite score hides an interesting reversal underneath it: women score higher on concern (83.4 vs 79.7) and roughly equal on empowerment. The entire gap is driven by the action component — the same structural barriers (time, safety, mobility) that show up throughout this survey.

Readiness by what they're doing

Preparing for exams
87.5
n=819
Postgraduate
87.2
n=1,068
Self-employed / freelance
87.0
n=754
Working full-time
86.1
n=1,706
Undergraduate
85.7
n=2,922
Vocational/technical
85.1
n=116
Working part-time
84.7
n=638
Looking for work
84.7
n=692
Taking a gap year
84.6
n=126
Homemaker
84.1
n=439
In school (9–12)
81.2
n=408

Readiness climbs steadily with life stage up through postgraduate study and early self-employment, then eases slightly for those still in school — consistent with the age pattern seen throughout this survey, where concern itself rises on the way into adulthood.

04

Limits of this score, stated plainly

This is one wave

The Readiness Index describes where young India stands today. It is not yet a trend line — that requires a second fielding wave on the same instrument, which doesn't exist yet.

Small-state caution

States below n=100 (14 of 34) are grouped into a single "other states & UTs" figure rather than shown individually, following the same suppression discipline used across TREND's public data products.

Action is defined strictly here

Unlike the 88% headline figure on the overview page, the Action input to this score excludes the ~3.8% of respondents who gave a self-contradictory answer (ticking "never" alongside a real action). That's why the national Action input reads 91.2%, not 88%.

Equal weighting is a choice, not a law

Concern, empowerment, and action are weighted equally here. A buyer or partner using this index for a specific purpose (e.g. weighting action more heavily for a behaviour-change program) would reasonably reweight it.