Beyond loss of income, joblessness is associated with greater poverty, marginalization, and social exclusion; the current global crisis is clearly not helping. Rania Antonopoulos advocates public employment as a policy instrument, with particular attention to policies that address female poverty. In this webcast she discusses South Africa’s Expanded Public Works Programme, addressing issues related to income and job generation, provisioning of communities’ unmet needs, skill enhancement for a new cadre of workers, and promotion of gender equality by addressing the overtaxed time of women. Rania Antonopoulos is Director of the 'Gender Equality and the Economy' program at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College (USA), an expert advisor to UNDP and co-director of two global networks, the Gender Macroeconomics and International Economics (GEM-IWG) and the Economists for full Employment (EFE). Her most recent publications include an ILO monograph, The Unpaid Work, Paid Work Connection.
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Structural Unemployment
Thank you, Rania, for your clear, informative and insightful presentation. Apart from the facts and arguments, you successfully communicated the crucial need and essential human values that underpin this issue and make it so central to our future.
In the course of the discussion you referred to the fact that broader social progress sometimes deprives individuals of the freedom they once enjoyed to create their own livelihood. This is a theme Winston Nagan touched on in his opening presentation on Human Rights and Employment. This seems to be a fundamental argument in support of the view that society has a social obligation to generate sufficient employment opportunities for all who seek them. In the past society was far less regulated than it is today. Those regulations protect citizens in many ways but they also restrict freedom of action substantially in the form of zoning, licensing, environmental regs, safety, trade, taxation, etc. etc.. Doesn't a society that restricts free pursuit of livelihood have an obligation to ensure alternatives?
I wonder if you can comment on this idea, cite any examples from your own research and indicate whether any society has consciously recognized the responsibility that goes along with the exercise of its power.