State policy and youth unemployment in South Africa, 1976-1992

Abstract

In common with many developing countries, youth unemployment in South Africa is reaching critical proportions. While the dimensions of the problem are not precisely known, studies of the 1976 youth revolt, as well as analyses of youth resistance in the 1980s, identified school-leavers with little or no prospect of employment as a central component in the form and scale of opposition to apartheid and apartheid education (Kane-Berman: 1978; Brookes and Brickhill; 1980; Swilling: 1986; Hyslop: 1988/89; Bundy: 1987). Faced with this situation, the South African state introduced various schemes and projects to soak up the unemployed, amongst whom youth featured prominently. The continuing rapidly escalating levels of unemployment amongst school-leavers are testimony to the failure of these schemes. In a context where the need to intervene and reshape the economic, social and political configuration of youth is perceived as an urgent priority by social and political actors across the board, these need to be examined, and alternatives posed.