Professor wants me to
I know you need to explore the "causes" of unemployment, but ponder this: why did you choose youth and inflationary unemployment to focus on out of all the various types of unemployment? How does this add to what you are alluding to in your introduction? Just make the connection between these two types of unemployment and what you are arguing about involuntary unemployment and an individual's psyche. Make sense? I couldn't make the leap, so make it for me.
The Unemployment or job loss does not impact just the family income, but it also affects the child development, stability of the family and household development. The unemployment has the behavioral implications as it affects the behavior and the attitude of the unemployed individuals. The involuntary unemployment or job loss results into the loss of self-control feeling, identity loss and ultimately, result in the state of depression. The following report gives a report on the cause-effect of unemployment on a family or an individual.
Primary cause of unemployment
Economists are in the views that there is no single primary cause of employment, which can substantially explain the reasons for this. This section gives the various reasons for the unemployment according to the type of unemployment:
Youth unemployment has been one of the sources of unemployment for a long period in the history; however, it gained the attention of many governments recently. Fundamentally, the chief reason for the high unemployment is the lack of training among the youths, which has resulted in a widening gap in the supply-demand of skill sets. Hence, the youths are not able to get the suitable employment, or they are underpaid (Sánchez-Castañeda et al., 2012).
The inflationary unemployment is a contributory factor in the cyclical unemployment. The following figure gives the causal effect diagram, giving the various causal paths to explain the reasons for the unemployment.
For example, it is seen from the road that the rise in the inflation leads to a decrease in the household's wealth. Because of the high prices, which lowers the consumer's spending and decreases in the GDP output. This ultimately results in the cyclical unemployment.
From the investment context, high inflation results in a higher interest rate, which will result in an adverse business investment spending. Consequently, it will reduce the output of GDP, leading to the cyclical employment (Loyola Marymount University, 2014).
Effects of unemployment
One of the visible and most excruciating results of the unemployment is the financial stress on the households and the individuals. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the long-term form of unemployment makes the firms and even the industries difficult to re-enter the business and market. This poses a serious question whether the long-term unemployment will be able to provide the jobs to the people, so that it will reinvigorate their psychological aspects and behavior of the individuals (Finnegan, 2003).
Individual and Family context
Davis & Mantler (2004) argued that the most reliable and consistent research regarding the effects of unemployment or job loss tells that the financial stress affects the self-esteem of an individual. I also changes the outlook of the person from the optimistic one towards the negative and pessimistic view of life. This also hampers the health status of the individuals, especially increase in the mental hostility and depression. The research also mentioned that there is a positive correlation between the unemployment and the alcohol consumption, sexual violence and even, the suicides - effect at the individual level.
The unemployment has the detrimental impact on the family as a whole, especially on the unemployed parents. Unemployed parent, especially fathers would be less responsive towards the requirements and needs of their offspring. This will result into the under nurturing of their children and skewed and inconsistencies in their parenthood. This will further lead to the aggression in the marital status; child was abusive, divorces and other societal problems (Davis & Mantler, 2004).
The Parliament of Australia (2014) mentioned that the unemployment has hard hitting impact on the mature-age individuals as they have a significant and substantial amount of financial commitments towards various economic dimensions. Such as, rent or mortgages, education expenses of their wards and other financial obligations and commitments towards other dependents in the family.
The economic context and the related effects of unemployment are profound. The economic context of unemployment has many factors involved in it - as it also includes financial and budgetary circumstances of unemployment and their impacts. Those who have to involuntary leave the jobs do not have a substantial way of accumulating resources for leading a long and comfortable retirements. The following section gives various economic effects of the unemployment:
The high rate of unemployment adds the burden on the country resources. The unemployed people are intended to have a greater usage of health and medical services in hospitals, pharmaceutical medicines consumptions, doctor visits and other medicinal facilities as compared to the employed people.
The Australian Treasury gave the following reasons on how the unemployment increases the costs of Federal or Central government budget. A reduction of future and current tax revenue and receipts like investments and superannuation. This increases the constraints on the budgetary policies, as there are a high number of people for the pension fund. A high spending on education, health and social services with lower ROI (Return on Investment) on these services.
The higher rate of unemployment lets down the image of the nation as an unproductive nation and loses its identity of prosperous and developing country. This further brings down the sentiment of the investors, and they are reluctant to pour money in the industrialization and manufacturing of the country. This all finally result in the cyclical unemployment.
The following report gives the cause-effect analysis of unemployment on an individual/family. It can be well concluded that unemployment has a devastating and highly adverse financial, economic and psychological impacts of the persons and the families. The health effect is highly substantial in this regards that affect both the family, individuals and overall the entire nation.
In terms of economic context and values, the unemployment leads to the loss of precious productive resources. This can be utilized for the growth of the economy, lessening in the inequality and the raising of the living standard of the community.