Questions about population and the labor force are intertwined. The dependency burden of the working population depends on fertility rates, and labor force growth is a function of natural population increase and migration. Labor skills are a major component of population quality. This chapter examines employment, unemployment, underemployment, and labor migration; the next chapter considers the quality of labor.

Employment Problems in Less-Developed Countries

You cannot understand unemployment in less-developed countries (LDCs) without realizing how it is different from that in the West. The openly unemployed in LDCs are usually fifteen to twenty-four years old, educated, and residents of urban areas. The unemployed in LDCs, usually supported by an extended family during a job search, are less likely to be from the poorest one-fifth of the population than in developed countries (DCs).

Still, the unemployment problem is of major concern to LDCs. Obviously, providing adequately paid, productive jobs for the very poor is a major way of reducing poverty and inequality in LDCs. High unemployment rates represent a vast underutilization of human resources; the unemployed, who are most often young, urban, educated males, are a potential source of social unrest and political discontent (Nafziger and Auvinen 2003:45???8).

In the West, economic development was accompanied by a large internal and international migration from rural areas, where technical progress freed labor, to urban areas, where rapid, industrial expansion increased labor demand. Many economists expected that rapid industrialization would resolve the employment problem in LDCs. Unfortunately, for reasons to be discussed in this chapter, the strategy of rapid industrial growth did not have the same results in LDCs as in the West.