When I first met Chandni in December 2016, she had just left her job working behind the till at a cafe in South Delhi. Although she was initially excited about this work, she told me her enthusiasm had been dampened by the manager's condescending attitude towards her and other workers. Within just a few weeks of joining the cafe, Chandni resigned when the manager refused to grant her time off to celebrate her anniversary with her boyfriend. Her friend, Prachi, who worked at the same cafe was supportive of Chandni's decision; she said, “We’re not the kind of people who would back down because we only ask for what we should get, what we know is right. How can you expect a person to work for seven days?” In the few months after her impulsive resignation, Chandni only managed to find brief periods of ad hoc work for a car company, which involved calling customers to invite them to promotional events. Eventually, one of Chandni's contacts invited her to paid participation in market research groups. Chandni agreed, hoping that this would eventually lead to full-time employment as a recruiter in the marketing company. But when this did not materialize, Chandni decided to quit in order to focus on her studies instead. At the time, Chandni was pursuing an undergraduate degree through distance learning and was keen to pass her exams. While studying at home and occasionally attending weekly classes on the university campus, Chandni was also responsible for managing the household after her mother temporarily moved away to work as a live-in nanny. When I visited Delhi in July 2018, six months later, Chandni had finished her undergraduate degree and was employed in a data entry job in an office.

Drawing on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork, this chapter examines the lives of young lower middle class women as they wilfully moved in and out of employment in the new economy of urban India. As Chandni's account demonstrates, young women were inclined to short-term employment across a range of new economy jobs in cafes, call centres, shopping malls and offices, rather than to careers in specialized fields.