Structural Unemployment and its Social Consequences: a Sociologist’s View

Unemployment exists in all three worlds. In the First World capital-intensive industries have replaced labor-intensive activities in order to compete with price structures in the developing countries; in the Second World the problem is less pronounced, but the trend is unavoidable because of the rationalization required to achieve growth in view of the restlessness of consumer-oriented populations; in the Third World unemployment has become the main preoccupation; economic development has dissolved tribal bonds, there is uncontrolled population explosion. It is theorized that societies in which increasing numbers of persons no longer fulfil a function will create drifting, purposeless individuals and thus become politically unstable. The mere redistribution of wealth, just as the latest proposals of work sharing and early retirement, will be insufficient to stem the long-term social problems created by unemployment. Instead, a reconsideration of values must occur so that an acceptable way of life is offered to persons not in the labor market. This can only be achieved by a substitution of professed values. Consequently, a significant change must take place in the educational system as well as in the traditional welfare measures of material support.