Youth Joblessness and Political Instability - Research Paper Example

Youth Joblessness and Political Instability Pros Youth unemployment leads to the youth seeking ways of sustaining themselves and therefore can easily join rebel goods to be paid for fighting and causing chaos Poverty breeds violence and youths who are unemployed will look for alternative ways to get the resources they lack and this might lead to looting and increase in crime. Unemployed youths become unsatisfied with their government and lose confidence in it. This leads to uprisings and demonstrations. If the labor market cannot support the sudden ‘youth bulge’ this will provide fertile grounds for frustrations to occur leading to uprising from the unemployed youth. Due to demographic transitions in developing countries is causing low frustrations and sparking of riots causing internal conflict. Cons Youth unemployment offers a vacuum for young creative minds to be entrepreneurs. Unemployed youth pick up the role of activists and push their government to perform and make employment opportunities available. Youth unemployment encourages the need to further ones education to be better advantaged in getting a job. Youth unemployment ensures that a country has a high labor market therefore encouraging investors to invest in a country or region due to readily available labor. Youth unemployment encourages the youth to develop their talents and use their talent as a source of income. Youth comprises of people between the age group of fifteen to twenty-four inclusive. Youth unemployment is the proportion of youth labor force that has not under employment (including self-employment) and is actively looking for and is available for work. Regardless of the stage of development in which a country is, youth unemployment is a very critical issue. Some researchers have differed on whether youth unemployment id correlated with political stability. Youth unemployment forces the youth to look for alternative ways of providing for themselvesi. Rebel leaders can take advantage of this desperation and lour unemployed youth into rebel groups. The youth will opt to join this rebel groups and get a source of income no matter how low instead of having nothing. This leads to the growth of rebel groups that cause chaos and fight against the government’s regime causing political instability. Higher rates of youth unemployment lead to higher chances of rebel groups forming and rising against the government. Poverty has been noted to breed violent character. Unemployed youth will often find themselves in a state of poverty. This will force them to do anything to gain access to the resources they require such food, shelter, clothing, and money. Areas that portray high rate of youth unemployment also show an increase in crime. Unemployed youth will turn to robbery and looting to get what they do not have. This causes insecurity and unrest among the public and people will protest against the environment due to the insecurity. This can lead to political instability because people have lost faith in their governmentii. Unemployed youth look up to the government to create job opportunities for them. If the government fails to do this, the youth revolt and protest against the government for not being able to take care of the youths needs. This will lead to a need of overthrowing the government and putting into power people who will most likely look after the needs of the people. Many coups in history have taken place due to the people losing faith in their government. This leads to unrest and political instability. The labor market is directly related to youth unemploymentiii. If the labor market cannot absorb the sudden ‘youth bulge’, frustrations occur among the youth causing demonstrations and riots against the government. This will lead to disruption of economic activities and affect a country’s economical development. Employed people will also be affected and the whole country will generally move backwards. This will lead to political instability with the government being unable to generate revenue for the country. Lack of revenue will lead to lack of development making the already bad situation worse. Demographic transitions are the transitions from a high birth and death rate to a lower death and birth death rates as a country undergoes development shifting it from a pre-industrialized to an industrialized economy. This generally leads to an increase in population. An increase in population will contribute to the ‘youth bulge’ and increase the number of unemployed youthiv. This will increase the pressure in job market and eventually cause riots and outbreaks from unemployed youth. Demographic transitions pose a great challenge to developing countries with already large population of youth. According to a survey carried out, some people believed that youth unemployment is not all negative and some people portray it. The feedback from the survey suggested that youth unemployment has its advantages to a country. Youth unemployment creates a favorable ground for entrepreneurship to be developed. Being unemployed will motivate the youth to be creative and develop ideas to create employment for themselves. This will lead to the youth analysis their environment and looking for problems and gaps that need to be filled in terms of provision of goods and services. This will lead to creation of more jobs as entrepreneurs offer work opportunities to other unemployed youth and the country will notice an improvement in development. Unemployed youth take the part of government watchdogs and activists who keep on pushing the government to perform their duties right such as providing work opportunities. The government is kept on toes and has to perform otherwise it will be met with disapproval from the youth who comprise the biggest percentage of the public. Unemployment among the youth creates a burning desire to do better in life and this will lead to many youths going back to school to further their education to increase their chances of being employed. This promotes a country’s higher education system and increases its literacy levels. Surveys have shown that people who are more educated are less likely to engage in unlawful activities since they have more to lose and their reasoning is much higher compared to less educated people. This will help maintain the political instability. Investors are attracted to areas with a dense population of available labor. Youth unemployment creates such an environment that attracts investors. The more investors pour in resources into projects in a country, the more the country becomes developed due to increase in revenue and employment. As more development takes place in a country, it becomes politically stable and attracts even more investors. This leads to an ongoing cycle that mainly focuses on the availability of labor form unemployed youth. Talent development is mostly portrayed by people who are not under fixed schedules of employment. Being unemployed encourages the youth to exploit and develop their talents and earn a source of income. Talents such as singing and sportsmanship have proved to be a source of very good income to many people. Talent development also increases the richness in creativity and pride of a country. In conclusion, regardless of the advantages of youth unemployment pointed out, the disadvantages outweigh them. According to the findings of the research, youth unemployment causes more harm to a country than good. Increase in crime is one of the things caused by youth unemployment. With crime come other factors such as murder, loss of property and increase in insecurity. Youth unemployment also makes the public lose faith in its government’s ability to take care of the people and leads to dissatisfaction. This will lead to the desire to have better leaders who are more concerned about the people’s needs. This need of change of leaders might be accompanied by violent behavior such as coups and riots. This will lead to political instability and derails any progress that a country might have made. Just as high rate of unemployment can attract investors due to the availability of cheap labor, it can also lead to exploitation. Since investors know that the number of unemployed youth cannot be completely depleted they will offer very low wages and since most of these people are desperate, they will opt to accept this low wages rather than remaining unemployed. This may also lead to frustrations among the exploited whose wages are not enough to meet their basic needs due to the hard economic times where prices of commodities are increasing. Unemployed youth are also most likely to divert to ill social behavior such as drug abuse and prostitution. Some people will turn to drugs to ease their frustrations and most of the times will have to steal money to be able to purchase the drugs since they are unemployed. This will contribute to an increase in crime. Other people will turn to prostitution to be able to earn some money to provide for themselves and sometimes for their families too. Prostitution and drug abuse will also affect other factors such as health. Increase in prostitution and drug abuse encourages the spread of diseases such as HIV/AIDS. Drug abuse renders productive youth unproductive. Having all these factors in mind, it is quite evident that the cons of youth unemployment causing political instability outweigh the pros. This makes youth unemployment a serious matter that needs to be taken into consideration. References Jochen Clasen, D. C. (2011). Regulating the Risk of Unemployment: National Adaptations to Post-Industrial Labour Markets in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.v Jonathan Evans, W. S. (2010). Youth Employment and the Future of Work. London: Council of Europe. Lonnie R. Sherrod, J. T.-P. (2010). Handbook of Research on Civic Engagement in Youth. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Paul Blokker, B. D. (2012). Youth Entrepreneurship and Local Development in Central and Eastern Eu. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Surian, A. (2007). Diversity Youth Forum: Forum Report. London: Council of Europe. Read More