Srinagar: Behind ₹2,000 café tabs, designer jackets and polished Instagram feeds across Srinagar lies a generation navigating youth unemployment, parental support, digital credit and the realisation that traditional milestones of wealth are increasingly difficult to reach.
Across urban Kashmir, from the boutique coffee strips of Rajbagh and Karan Nagar to college hangouts along Srinagar’s Boulevard, highly visible youth consumer spending has fuelled a perception that Generation Z has unprecedented spending power.
Yet beneath the curated table layouts, latest-model smartphones and branded streetwear, that visibility does not necessarily reflect personal earnings or accumulated assets. Parsa Tariq’s interviews suggest that such spending can be supported by a combination of parental support, app-based credit, side incomes and changing attitudes towards consumption, with social media making that lifestyle more visible than ever.
Inside an upscale, glass-fronted café in Rajbagh overlooking the Jhelum, 21-year-old university student Zoya Mir settles a bill of ₹1,850 for two iced lattes and a slice of cheesecake. She scans the café’s printed QR code with her phone, taps in her UPI PIN and slips the device back into the pocket of her light denim jacket. Around her table, friends discuss weekend plans for a getaway to Pahalgam.
Zoya has no job. She is in the final year of an undergraduate degree. “People walk into these places or see our stories online and assume everyone sitting here is born with a silver spoon,” Mir says. “We aren’t rich. But going to a park or sitting by the lake in the middle of a warm September afternoon isn’t where you hang out with friends to work or sit for hours. You want indoor spaces with air conditioning or cooling, stable Wi-Fi, and a relaxed environment where people leave you alone. We spend what little money we have on this because it’s the primary way our generation socialises. But people see the photos on Instagram and assume we have endless disposable income.”
This visible consumption exists against a difficult regional employment backdrop. According to the 2025 Annual Report of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), the unemployment rate among people aged 15–29 in Jammu and Kashmir was 14.1%, compared with 9.9% across India under the usual-status measure. The figures cover rural and urban populations combined for the same age group and measure.
National research, meanwhile, illustrates the growing economic influence of Gen Z consumption. Research by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Snap Inc. estimated Gen Z-driven consumer spending in India at about $860 billion. The research distinguishes between money spent directly by Gen Z consumers and household or other consumption influenced by their preferences and recommendations.
In Kashmir, that distinction matters. Visible spending does not necessarily tell us who earned the money being spent.
The Parental Safety Net
CA Arzoo, who works in financial planning and analysis, says the sources of Gen Z’s spending power are becoming more varied. “It is content creation like freelancing,” she says. For young people who have marketable skills, Arzoo says freelancing can provide an alternative source of income even before they enter conventional full-time employment. “Freelancing is a simple way to earn using the skills you already have,” she says. “Just use your talent, find work online, and get paid for what you’re good at.”
Someone who previously depended entirely on a monthly allowance may suddenly have additional income from writing, design, video editing, social media management, coding or content creation. But Arzoo stresses that earning money and being financially secure are not necessarily the same thing. An additional income stream can increase spending power while also making a higher level of consumption feel normal very quickly.
Family support is another part of the equation. For many young adults in Kashmir, living with parents means that rent, groceries, electricity and other major household expenses do not necessarily fall on the individual.
Farooq Ahmad Dar, a 54-year-old government contractor residing in Hyderpora, finances his 22-year-old son’s tuition, vehicle fuel, mobile plan and daily expenses. “My son does not pay for electricity, he does not buy cooking gas, and he does not have to worry about buying groceries. If I give him ₹10,000 for the month, all ₹10,000 is disposable cash. When he spends ₹1,500 on a single lunch with his friends in Rajbagh, he isn’t touching his savings because he doesn’t need to save. His family is his savings.”
Arzoo says parental or family support can be a significant source of spending money for some young people, particularly when they live at home and do not bear major household expenses. She describes this as an observation from situations she has encountered rather than a figure drawn from a formal survey. The distinction between direct personal income and household-influenced spending is also reflected in the BCG-Snap research, which separates Gen Z’s direct spending from the much larger pool of consumption influenced by Gen Z preferences.
“Our generation grew up seeing curfews, crackdowns, and zero avenues for leisure,” says Shabir Wani, a 51-year-old shopkeeper from Downtown Srinagar whose daughter studies at a local college. “We saved every rupee out of fear. Now, if my daughter wants to go to a nice restaurant with her friends or wear decent clothes, I give her the money. We want them to feel like normal young people living in a normal city. But that doesn’t mean we are wealthy. It means we prioritise their happiness over our own peace of mind.”
For Arzoo, the important question is not simply whether a young person receives financial support from their family, but whether that support is mistaken for personal financial independence. A young person may be able to spend ₹10,000 or ₹15,000 a month without paying rent, groceries or household bills, she says, but that does not necessarily mean they have ₹10,000 or ₹15,000 of independently earned disposable income.
The Working-Class Divide
The visibility of expensive lifestyles can create a different kind of pressure for young people from less privileged backgrounds, for whom modern consumerism can become a burden rather than an easy indulgence.
In an electronics repair shop off Residency Road, a 23-year-old sales assistant who asked to remain anonymous earns ₹14,000 a month working six days a week. His father is a retired artisan whose carpet-weaving income declined sharply in recent years. His salary goes directly towards the family’s basic household needs. “My college friends still call me to meet at restaurants near the Bund where a plate of pasta costs ₹550,” he says. “If I refuse to go, I am excluded from the group. If I go, I spend money that was supposed to buy my mother’s blood pressure medicine. You end up buying replica sneakers at Sunday Market just so people don’t immediately see that you’re struggling. I am terrified of looking poor.”
For young workers from working-class households, keeping up appearances may be less about showing off than maintaining social ties in a close-knit society where social standing can be closely watched.
The Rise of App-Based Credit
Another mechanism facilitating youth consumption is the growing availability of digital credit and Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) schemes. For older generations in Kashmir, accessing bank credit could involve more traditional processes through physical branches and documentation. Digital lending and instalment-based services can now make some forms of credit accessible through a smartphone, although eligibility, verification and terms vary between lenders.
National credit data shows substantial participation by younger borrowers entering formal credit for the first time. TransUnion CIBIL reported in March 2025 that Gen Z accounted for 41% of India’s New-to-Credit (NTC) consumers. The figure refers to consumers with no prior credit history on their credit file and relates to the quarter ending December 2024.
In Srinagar, a 24-year-old customer-support worker who asked to remain anonymous earns ₹22,000 a month. He currently manages three active digital instalment plans. “My phone is on an EMI of ₹4,800 a month,” he says. “My smartwatch is ₹1,600, and I used a three-part payment app to buy two jackets at ₹2,100 a month. On their own, each amount feels manageable. But on the fifth of every month, almost ₹8,500 is auto-debited before I even touch my pay. That’s nearly 40 percent of my salary gone immediately.”
When unexpected costs arise, such as vehicle maintenance, he says he relies on credit-card minimum payments. “You walk down the street in Srinagar and you see young guys holding the latest phones and wearing branded puffers,” he says. “Half of that stuff is being paid for through an EMI or credit facility until next year. The financial apps have made it easy to buy things you can’t afford, simply so you don’t look left behind.”
His description is his own assessment of what he observes around him, rather than a measure of how widespread credit-financed consumption is among Kashmir’s young people.
Arzoo nevertheless sees easy credit as an important financial risk for young consumers. “These days, people rely way too much on credit cards and EMIs without realizing how expensive they actually are,” she says. “The biggest risk for young people is getting into a lifestyle they can’t actually afford. Easy access to credit cards, EMIs and ‘buy now, pay later’ makes spending feel painless, but interest and fees can slowly turn small purchases into big financial burdens.”
The Instagram Effect
Instagram has turned leisure into a form of public performance for many young people in urban Kashmir. Some cafés in Srinagar increasingly lean into that visibility, with carefully designed interiors and presentation that encourage customers to photograph, tag and share their experiences.
“You aren’t just selling a cup of coffee; you are selling a set,” says a 28-year-old café operator in Rajbagh who spoke on condition of anonymity. “If a customer spends ₹450 on an iced coffee, they will spend fifteen minutes adjusting the lighting and taking photos from multiple angles. If the decor looks ordinary, they won’t return, regardless of how good the drink is. The aesthetic is what brings them through the door.” The influence extends beyond cafés.
PwC India’s 2024 Voice of the Consumer Survey, based on a sample of 1,000 Indian consumers, found that 77% of respondents said they had discovered new brands through social media. Among Gen Z respondents, 61% said they had been persuaded to buy a product or service because of an influencer or celebrity.
Arzoo says the pressure created by these platforms can make consumption appear more widespread and attainable than it actually is. “Social media has created so much pressure that people often show a life they don’t actually live,” she says. “We see something, assume it’s real, and blindly follow the trend without knowing what’s actually right or whether it even makes sense for us.”
A designer jacket or expensive dinner, however, reveals little about how it was financed. It may have been paid for by a parent, purchased through an EMI, received as a gift or bought with income from a side hustle.
Social media displays the consumption, not the financial mechanism behind it.
When the Old Roadmap Feels Out of Reach
The spending choices described by young Kashmiris also intersect with changing perceptions of financial security. For generations, a familiar middle-class roadmap was to secure a stable job, save, buy land and eventually build a home. For some young professionals interviewed for this story, that path now feels increasingly distant.
The District Srinagar administration publishes official market-value and stamp-duty rates for 2026, with rates varying according to location and property category. Those official rates do not, by themselves, establish what a particular ₹24 lakh budget can or cannot purchase across Srinagar.
Twenty-five-year-old remote web developer Tufail Bhat, who lives in Bemina and earns ₹42,000 a month, says he has calculated what conventional saving would mean for him. “My parents always tell me to save every penny so I can build a house one day,” he says. “I did the calculation. If I live on nothing, cut out every personal expense, and save ₹20,000 every month, it will take me ten years to save ₹24 lakh. What land can you buy in Srinagar for ₹24 lakh? Nothing. The market has moved far beyond what entry-level salaries can touch.”
That assessment is Bhat’s own. But it helps explain why he does not view spending on travel, dining and clothes simply as a rejection of financial responsibility. For him, it is partly about enjoying things that feel attainable now. “I can’t afford a plot of land, and I probably never will on my own income,” he says. “So I spend my money on things I can actually have. I can afford a ₹5,000 dinner with my friends. I can afford a weekend in Sonamarg. I can afford good clothes.”
Arzoo says spending on experiences or personal wants is not inherently irresponsible. The concern begins when discretionary consumption undermines savings or creates debt. “I’d say enjoy your money, but understand where it’s going,” she says. “Spend on yourself, but don’t compromise your future financial security just to maintain a certain lifestyle today.”
For a generation navigating a difficult employment market, new income streams, family support, easier access to credit and intense digital visibility, the café bill is only one part of the story. What appears online as affluence can conceal very different financial realities: a parent’s allowance, a freelancer’s side income, a salary partly committed to EMIs, or a young worker struggling to keep up with friends.
The consumption is visible. The balance sheet behind it usually is not.
