The Urban Jobless in Eastern Africa

Abstract

This study is about a category of the population in eastern African society who have at one time or another migrated from the rural areas into town but are employed and jobless. The study shows that this category of unemployed (jobless) population has shifted significantly over the last two decades from a predominantly older age cyclic migratory target-employment seekers to bands and armies of youths and youngsters who cannot find any employment and yet who cannot go back home. And these are preponderantly young school leavers and school dropcuts, with lofty aspirations and energy but who seem frustrated by or else confess frustration with rural life and as such would not wish to leave the city! Analysis of their socio-economic characteristics, their activities and their aspirations and study of the realities of contemporary rural society do suggest that the problem of urban unemployment and the nagging problem of the jobless urban youths is in the first instance a rural problem. It seems to imply that any solution of the 'urban' problem lies in efforts to solve the underlying 'rural' problem, which is almost invariably rural poverty and neglect of or shadowy investment into the rural sector. Any sucess in rehabilitating the youths and saving the generation of tomorrow depends on recognizing this fact.