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Solving the SA unemployment problem |
22 March 2012. Here's my attempt to get at the root cause of unemployment in South Africa. Unemployment is a result of lack of skills which results from the inability to delay gratification which results from poor parenting.
Those matriculants who are excelling at mathematics, science & english have given themselves a lifetime's advantage over youngsters who aren't as skilled, and will broadly form the group of people who have the great jobs in 30 years time. The worse your results in these subjects the less decent you can expect your employment opportunities to be.
The fact that academically strong youngsters go on to have great jobs is independent of the opportunities available in South Africa, as these kids would either become entrepeneurs or find jobs overseas if there aren't great prospects in SA. It's easy to see that if all youngsters in South Africa were doing better academically than those in most other countries, then unemployment would largely be a thing of the past in SA.
It is more insightful to speak about a skill inequality in South Africa than an income inequality, as the income inequality is a function of the skills inequality.
"Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain & pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting & experiencing the pain first & getting it over with." (M. Scott Peck). Delaying gratification is the key to studying, where the rewards are in the distant future. South Africa performs very poorly academically, is this a symptom of our inability as a country to delay gratification?
The question now arises, why do some people develop a capacity to delay gratification while others fail? "Most of the signs rather clearly point to the quality of parenting as the determinant." (M Scott Peck)
"When we teach ourselves & our children discipline, we are teaching them & ourselves how to suffer & also how to grow." (M. Scott Peck)
The problem with public holidays is that most businesses shut down, so productivity drops to zero. So scrapping all public holidays will help businesses. Add the public holidays to the mandatory minimum leave so that workers aren't worse off. Since more work is being done in fewer working hours more workers are required, reducing unemployment.
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