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Janhvi Singh
Keywords:
Aspirant class; liminality; waithood; competitive examinations; youth unemployment; coaching industry; India
Abstract:
Millions of educated young Indians spend years cycling through education, competitive-examination preparation, failure or waiting, and re-preparation, long after formal schooling has ended and well before, if ever, formal employment begins. This paper argues that “preparation” for competitive examinations - for the civil services, banking, teaching, defence and state public-service commissions - has ceased to be a temporary, functional job-seeking activity and has instead hardened into a distinct social identity and structural position: that of the “aspirant.” Drawing on secondary data - Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) reports, Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) statistics, and industry analyses of India’s coaching economy - read through the theoretical lenses of Victor Turner's liminality, Erik Erikson's psychosocial moratorium, Craig Jeffrey's concept of waithood, Pierre Bourdieu's theory of capital and habitus, and Michael Sandel's critique of meritocracy, the paper builds a composite conceptual model of the “aspirant class.” It further examines how this liminal identity is inflected by gender, caste and class, and by the commercial infrastructure of the coaching industry that profits from prolonged waiting. The paper concludes by outlining the policy and conceptual stakes of recognising aspiranthood as a legitimate object of sociological analysis rather than a residual or transitional category.
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International Journal of Recent Research and Review
ISSN: 2277-8322
Vol. XIX, Issue 3
September 2026
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PUBLISHED
September 2026
ISSUE
Vol. XIX, Issue 3
SECTION
Articles
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