ABSTRACT
The reason for the increase in global unemployment rates varies by place and over time, but the common thread appears to be neoliberal policies, privatization, and shrinking employment opportunities as well as an increase in young populations, especially in the non-Western world. While there are significant variations in how youth unemployment manifests itself across the world, all the resultant laborscapes signal a dramatic shift that needs to be understood and theorized as a coherent problem. Youth unemployment rates in Africa are particularly high in urban areas and affect mostly young people with at least secondary education. Existing patterns of disenfranchisement based on gender, class, and ethnicity are exacerbated in countries experiencing high levels of youth unemployment. The gendered dimensions of work and unemployment classifications also shape the contours of the laborscape. Social scientists in the last decade have undertaken a critical study of precarity, yet the quantitative explosion of this research threatens to broaden the concept beyond usefulness.
