The Problems of Youth Unemployment and Rural Crime
Chapter One
PURPOSES OF STUDY/OBJECTIVES
The main objective of this study is the problems of youth unemployment and rural crime. But for the successful completion of the study; the researcher intends to achieve the following sub-objectives;
- This study generally investigate the problems of youth unemployment and rural crime with particular reference to Ngor Okpala local government of Imo State.
- To describe the extent of youth unemployment and crime in Ngor Okpala local government of Imo State.
- To determine crimes that is traceable to unemployment.
- To examine the strategies employed by the government in combating the problems of youth unemployment and rural crime in the location of study as well as the effectiveness of control mechanism employed.
- To proffer solution and recommendation to the problems of youth unemployment and rural crime in Ngor Okpala local government of Imo State.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
INTRODUCTION
The concept of unemployment like others in the fields of human endeavor has received various definitions and descriptions. This is because human beings view things from different perspectives. Therefore, this sub-section is meant to review some of the definitions of unemployment given by scholars and then, try to agree on working definition of unemployment. According to Nicholas (2000), a person is unemployed if he or she is eligible for work but does not have a job. Volkova (1986) maintained that an unemployment situation is in other words called mass-unemployment when the number of qualified manpower who is unemployed is considerably enough or outnumber that of those in gainful employment. Keynes (1935), stated that the term unemployment is used to apply in literal sense to all persons without work, but it has come to have more specific meaning in contemporary realization of social and economic policy.
According to Volkova and Volkova (1986:226), he saw unemployment as to be left without means of sustenance, without an opportunity to eat food and have decent housing, it means to lose confidence in today and hope for tomorrow. To a layman, Volkova’s definition has gone a long way to enlighten on what unemployment look like. Aguene (1991), defined unemployment as the number of people in the population who are willing and offer themselves for employment but could not be employed because of lack of vacancies for them. The most appropriate definition of unemployment is the one given by Lampman (1974). He said that unemployment is a social-economical situation in which persons who have no work and are able and willing to work and also actively seeking for work but no work. All legal definitions of unemployment and in particular, the international definition given by Labour statistical assume that the individual concerned is actively looking for work, except in the case of someone who has been laid of where reference to that state might seem superfluous. According to the Eight International Conference of Employment Statisticians, in Statistiques de Population Active Inactive Geneva, International Labor Office (Report No. 14, 1954), People legally considered unemployed fell under the following groups
- a. Workers available for employment whose contract of employment has terminated or been temporarily suspended and who are without a job and seeking paid employment.
- b. Persons never previously employed, whose most recent status was other than that of employee, together with persons who had been in retirement who were available for work during a specific period (except for reason for non-malignant illness) and were seeking paid employment.
- c. Persons without a job and currently available for work who have made arrangement to start a new job at a date subsequent to the specified period.
- d. Persons temporarily or indefinitely laid-off without pay
The aim of such definition as put forward by Armin (1976), is to illustrate and measure an anomaly in the way which the economy of a country functions. Lampman (1974) observed that there is considerable controversy concerning the number and nature of persons who should be counted as unemployed in a country at a particular moment in time. In answer to this controversy, Lampman (1974) stated that only those persons not at work for more than a specified minimum of time and who are able and are willing to work, and also actively seeking work, are generally considered as employed. According to Rodney (1985), the term unemployed is not applied to everyone who is not employed but only those of legal working age and older who are without jobs and seeking for work.
The fact that there is no reliable data on the figure of unemployed Nigerians not withstanding very much, Nigerians are unemployed. Princewill, reporting in (Vanguard April 9, 2002) stated that the half-year report on the national unemployment rate by the Federal Office of Statistics has indicated a high unemployment rate among school leavers and uneducated people. The age between 15 and 24 years has the highest rate of 29.3%, while the group between 45 and 59 years had 10.3% and the age of 65 to 70 years had 16.7%. The pattern was maintained when the rat were considered within the urban and rural sector. In a similar account of National Directorate of Employment (NDE), was reported by the News Watch magazine publication of (4th September, 1986) was saying that as at September 1995, one out of every twelve Nigerians was unemployed in urban sector while one out of every six Nigerians was unemployed in rural sector going by the NDE report, it seems rightly believable if one claims that over ten million Nigerians workforce are unemployed. One might ask, which is the most hit group by unemployment in Nigeria Aremu (1986) maintained that the “Active” population of Nigeria is the most hard hit group by unemployment. He stated that 39.3% of the unemployment fall within the age group of 15-19 years of age.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought to the problems of youth unemployment and rural crime
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
(i)Primary source and
(ii)Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
Population of the study
Population of a study is a group of persons or aggregate items, things the researcher is interested in getting information on the study the problems of youth unemployment and rural crime. 200 staff of ministry of labour and productivity, Imo state chapter, was selected randomly by the researcher as the population of the study.
Sample and sampling procedure
Sample is the set people or items which constitute part of a given population sampling. Due to large size of the target population, the researcher used the Taro Yamani formula to arrive at the sample population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was to ascertain the problem of youth unemployment and rural crime.
In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of youth unemployment.
Summary
This study was on the problems of youth unemployment and rural crime. Five objectives were raised which included; This study generally investigate the problems of youth unemployment and rural crime with particular reference to Ngor Okpala local government of Imo State, to describe the extent of youth unemployment and crime in Ngor Okpala local government of Imo State., to determine crimes that is traceable to unemployment., to examine the strategies employed by the government in combating the problems of youth unemployment and rural crime in the location of study as well as the effectiveness of control mechanism employed, to proffer solution and recommendation to the problems of youth unemployment and rural crime in Ngor Okpala local government of Imo State. In line with these objectives, two research hypotheses were formulated and two null hypotheses were posited. The total population for the study is 200 staff of ministry of labour and productivity, Imo state. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made up labour officers, inspectors of factories, senior staff and junior staff was used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies.
Conclusion
No nation can achieve growth or any form of stability that will enhance socio-economic development in an atmosphere of chronic youth unemployment. The role of Nigerian government must include the formulation of policies and laws that could help improve the economic and social wellbeing of its citizens and wealth creation. There is a need to increase jobs through small enterprises and poverty alleviation schemes. Economic growth in Nigeria is not the only solution to curb unemployment as the official statistics illustrate that previous unemployment did not decline economic growth. Other solutions such as the provision of right skills to youth should be given an importance. If factors that are responsible for youth unemployment in Nigeria are addressed, youths’ criminality would be reduced.
Recommendation
Youth’s unemployment and its relationship with attendant crime are part of major social problems affecting the growth and development of this country. Many Nigerians cannot meet the basic needs of life because they have no jobs. There are ways in which government can tackle these social ills affecting the country. One of the ways is that government should invest massively in agriculture and also encourage youths into this direction. Government should make agric-business to be exciting, creative and innovative enough to stir and spur youth interest. Government should engage the teeming youths by establishing farm settlements and employ youths who will contribute their quota to national development. Furthermore, youths should be creative and learn different vocational skills. By so doing, they will be job providers and not job seekers. Vocational and technical education should be vigorously pursued. This will go a long way to reduce youth unemployment.
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