Tazlina Zamila Khan
The recent data of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics revealed that currently, the total number of unemployed is 4 crore 82 lakhs. It might represent only the quantity, but each number has its own sad story of being unemployed.
The transition period from school to work creates a great impact on the maturity of the young people. It represents their adulthood. For many, the first job means-independence and no need of taking money from the parents. It means they are able to face their relatives and peers. They have their self-owned identity now.
Nowadays, thousands of candidates fight for one post only to get an identity. Why? Because no one wants to be unemployed. Everyone wants a better career and job. It is well known that an unemployed person’s chances of getting a job decrease as the length of unemployment increases. The most horrifying factor of being unemployed is the mental harm of the person, which in most of the cases remains unaddressed.
Unemployment is not only the absence of a permanent income source but also the lack of an important sense of self-purpose. As a result, it brings a shock to a person’s whole system.
Majority of the psychologists around the world agreed upon a point that the response to stressful events, such as unemployment, takes the form of a progression through stages. Shock tends to characterise the initial phase, during which the individual is still optimistic and unbroken. With the passage of time the person becomes pessimistic and suffers active distress, and ultimately becomes fatalistic about his situation and adapts unenthusiastically to his new state.
As a result, it leads to loss of mental balance, because of elevated levels of anxiety, frustration, disappointment, alienation and depression. The problem is more acute of the persons with greater financial responsibilities and persons with a greater sense of self-efficacy fostered by prior success in a host of domains including school and work. Thus, the highly educated and parents are particularly vulnerable to the debilitating emotional consequences of unemployment. Numerous factors may safeguard the adverse psychological impact of involuntary joblessness including an understanding spouse, parents, siblings, adult children and friends.
Research clarifying the relationship between unemployment and mental health has been carried out in many ‘first world’ industrialized countries, including Australia; Austria; Belgium; Canada; Finland; The Republic of Ireland; Germany; Italy; the Netherlands; New Zealand; Norway; Spain; Sweden; the United Kingdom; and the United States.
In 2015, a British Council sponsored report on graduate unemployment in South Asia prepared by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), estimated, nearly 5 out of every 10 graduates in Bangladesh are unemployed (against 3 out of 10 in India and Pakistan). It says the country has a graduate unemployment rate of 47 percent. The report partly attributes graduate unemployment problem to the region’s fast-expanding but poor quality private education sector and use of outdated curriculum in public universities.
In South Korea, the number of economically inactive graduates is over 3 million. In Singapore, the graduate unemployment rate was reported to be 3.6% in 2013 against the average unemployment rate of around 2%.
However, Warr’s (1987) VITAMIN MODEL is concerned with the effects of different environmental features on mental health. He proposes nine features of the environment (opportunity for control, opportunity for skill use, externally generated goals, variety, environmental clarity, availability of money, physical security, opportunity for interpersonal contact and valued social position), which, according to him affect mental health in an analogous manner to the way vitamins, affect physical health.
Moreover, many authors have agreed that long-term unemployment appears to lead to suicidal ideation, drug use and may also lead to suicide. It seems to be the dominant reason for the high prevalence of suicidal ideation among unemployed people.
The solution is not easy but yet not impossible. Obviously, the government is the main stakeholders creating new employment opportunities for the unemployed. The government could offer all citizens equal opportunities for well-being, information and choice of services, access to good-quality care and integration into society.
Also, the government should have a special focus on the people with the greatest needs including at-risk groups and people with a serious mental health problem and offer resources proportionate to needs. Also, the individuals should support each other rather shaming and embarrassing the unemployed person publicly or asking random questions about employment status. Lastly, families of the unemployed people must give mental support to them in the critical moments.
(Tazlina Zamila Khan, English Language teacher, Premier School Dhaka, Uttara)
