While internships are a necessary part of the formal job market, a large proportion of them are severely underpaid, a development that has in recent years sparked fierce criticism and debate.
As any college student will know, it is not difficult to find internship advertisements where a “letter of recommendation” or a “certificate of internship”, or “exposure” is offered in place of monetary compensation. This is especially true for internships that undergraduate students apply for.
Even internships where a stipend is provided, the amounts are nominal, making it difficult to cover travel expenses to and from work – leave alone the living expenses if one’s permanent residence is not at the same location as their workplace. This implies that students need to pay out of their pocket to fund an internship experience. While these internships can be easily taken up by candidates whose families have the financial capability to support them, many underprivileged students have to let go of such chances of improving their future career prospects.
To further understand the internship experience for an undergraduate student, we decided to survey students from major universities in India with two objectives: First, to ascertain the extent of underpayment in internships during undergraduate studies, and second, to gauge the role played by financial and socio-cultural capital in determining how well a person does in their professional career.
For this purpose, we rolled out a Google form in two languages – English and Hindi and were able to survey 326 respondents. Our respondents contained a mix of students coming from urban (72%) and rural (28%) areas.
Table 1: Profile of Respondents
| Annual income of student’s family | Number of students | ||
| Rural | Urban | Total | |
| <5 lakhs | 54 | 39 | 93 |
| 5-10 lakhs | 18 | 56 | 74 |
| 10-15 lakhs | 8 | 50 | 58 |
| 15-25 lakhs | 4 | 45 | 49 |
| >25 lakhs | 7 | 45 | 52 |
| Total | 91 | 235 | 326 |
In our survey, we defined ‘underpaid’ internships as any short term (1-6 months) contractual work engagement in which the monetary costs (travel, living expenses incurred specifically for the internship, etc.) are more than the monetary benefits (travel allowance, stipend, etc.) received from the internship opportunity.
Findings
Unsurprisingly, 69% of the internships taken up by students in our survey were underpaid. A student had to pay Rs 6,356 per month from their pocket, on average, including both stipends and costs. This figure was even higher, at Rs 8,550 per month, for students who did not have their permanent residence in the cities in which they undertook internships.
Further, the average number of internships undertaken by students at the higher levels of annual family income was more as compared to that by students with lesser annual family incomes. Even within the same income brackets, the average number of internships taken up by students coming from urban areas was more than that for students coming from rural areas.
Table 2: Average number of internships done by respondents
| Annual income of student’s family | Average number of internships done by students | ||
| Rural | Urban | Combined Average | |
| <5 lakhs | 0.56 | 1.82 | 1.09 |
| 5-10 lakhs | 0.56 | 2.07 | 1.70 |
| 10-15 lakhs | 0.50 | 2.18 | 1.95 |
| 15-25 lakhs | 2.00 | 2.44 | 2.41 |
| >25 lakhs | 1.29 | 2.33 | 2.19 |
| Combined Average | 0.67 | 2.17 | 1.75 |
With privilege and socio-cultural capital, come contacts and networks. There is a direct correlation between financial capital and social capital. For instance, over 63% of the students whose families have an annual income greater than Rs 25 lakh had secured at least one internship through friends and family contacts. In comparison, only 34% of the students with annual income less than 5 lakhs had secured an internship through such networks. This implies students from families with higher annual incomes have greater ease in finding internships and are also able to afford them in case they are underpaid. The opposite holds for underprivileged students, who neither have enough social capital to find internships nor sufficient financial support, even if they find an internship.
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Only 10% of the students from families with an annual income of less than Rs 5 lakh were able to afford to take up all internships that they aimed for. In comparison, more than 77% of the students from families with an annual income of more than Rs 25 lakh expressed that they could afford every internship opportunity that came their way.
A public policy aspirant from Gujarat who had to decline an internship offer due to financial constraints shared his dissatisfaction: “It was with one of the best and most well-known think tanks in the country. The project was great and exactly what I was looking for. It also had the chance of getting a research paper published under my name but staying in Delhi involved a lot of costs which I could not afford”.
Since internships play an important role in deciding students’ professional trajectory, this limited dataset sheds some light on how the current system of underpayment tilts the balance in favor of the already privileged students. Such privileged students, standing on the shoulders of their past internship experiences can get better-paid job placements and attend better colleges during postgraduate studies. On the other hand, the students who were left out due to inadequate financial and social capital have to settle for less and begin their careers at a lower point on their salary curve.
A student from a village in Kerala, expressing his frustration with the level of inequality shared that “A friend worked as an intern with a major company for six months with absolutely no money and then got a job with an annual package many would die for”.
The rural plight
We had imagined that the brunt of underpaid internships would be borne disproportionately by students coming from rural areas of India. As expected, more than 64% of the rural students had never interned during their undergraduate studies in comparison to 80% of urban students who had undertaken at least one internship. Strikingly, majority of rural students had not taken up internships due to reasons beyond financial constraints.
This is unsettling, particularly when these rural students attended undergraduate college in the urban areas along with their urban counterparts who are usually quite aggressive in chasing internships. In order to understand this remarkable difference, we conducted in-depth interviews with twelve of our rural respondents and were able to understand several factors that contribute to their exclusion from the internship paradigm.
The most commonly shared reason for not undertaking any internship was the lack of information. Once again, privilege talks. Urban students were aware of the internship culture well before entering college and they had started applying for internships as soon as college began. On the other hand, many rural students heard the term “internship” for the first time when they saw their urban classmates interning during summer breaks. Even after hearing about internships, there was a lag in understanding their importance. A Hyderabad’s university student from Poonch district of Jammu revealed how “internship ke baare me suna toh tha lekin importance jab placements shuru hui tab pata chala aur tab tak late ho gaya tha“. This lack of information and lag in understanding existed even after students attended colleges in urban areas because their peer group in these colleges comprised of students from rural areas like them.
Another recurrent reason was a locational disadvantage. Rural areas rarely have any internship opportunities and in case the students had to take up an internship in the cities, they would have to stay away from their villages even during breaks and vacations. Apart from the expenses of staying away from home (when it is possible to stay at home and save money), there were multiple deterring factors such as competing priorities, lack of family support, lower skill levels.
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A first-year MA Economics student at Delhi School of Economics shared that she wanted to do an internship during her undergraduate studies, but her parents were not supportive of her staying at the university for summer breaks. They were not aware of the concept of internships and their benefits in one’s career. Few also shared that they had to go back home to assist in family farming, take tuitions for supporting family income, and provide care to their family members.
Even those who were aware of the importance of internships and had the support of their parents found it difficult to secure them due to a lower level of skills as compared to urban students who applied for the same roles. In one of the interviews, another Delhi University student from the Jehanabad district of Bihar shared, “Urban students are taught to use Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel in their schools while we are just introduced to the software to pass exams”.
Apart from the above-mentioned reasons, some students did not undertake any internship out of sheer choice to not do so. Such students usually belonged to families of landed gentries or were those who were preparing for government exams and believed that a CV is not essential for government jobs.
The problem
This lack of internship experience during undergraduate studies among the underprivileged has put them in a difficult position as they progress with their careers. A few students said that as they moved to post-graduate studies, the curriculum was progressively shifting from learning theories to the application of theories for real-life situations. Since they had no practical experience, it was difficult for them to cope up.
Apart from academics, a major disadvantage was also observed in the job market. A majority shared that their CVs did not get shortlisted for any internships during their postgraduate studies or jobs after that. Even for the students whose CVs got shortlisted, they were not able to secure any jobs as they lacked the interview skills usually possessed by the students who have interned in the past. Every student expressed deep regret for not taking up internships during undergraduate studies and shared that it is one thing that they would definitely like to change if given the chance. This was disheartening to hear, as these students were simply unlucky – they did not have the financial, social, and cultural capital that drives internship opportunities.
Along with issues on the academic and job market front, students shared that they found themselves underconfident in front of their experienced colleagues with the same educational qualification. Internships provide real experience along with the opportunity to explore different fields and the privileged have the chance to gauge what field they wish to pursue in their career and what can be avoided. On the contrary, a majority of students who could not intern said that since they have no idea of how work is done in any particular field, they have to settle for whatever they can secure.
Manan Thakkar is currently working as a Research Associate at the Population Council Institute and is an incoming MA Economics candidate at Columbia University, New York.
Palak Wahi is currently working with the Government of NCT of Delhi under the CMIE fellowship and is an incoming Masters in Development Studies candidate at IHEID, Geneva.