The Psychological Repercussions Of Unemployment: A Study Of Windhoek’s “Street Unemployed”

ABSTRACT

This thesis sought to investigate unemployment from a psychological perspective in an African country in general, and in Namibia in particular. The research question aimed to investigate what the situation of Namibia's "street unemployed" (men who wait at certain street points to be picked up for a day-job) entails and what its psychological repercussions are. Seligman's reformulated Theory of Learned Helplessness was chosen as the theoretical framework for the study. The empirical investigation followed a qualitative-quantitative research approach. In the qualitative part of the study ten "street unemployed" were interviewed and evaluated through Qualitative Content Analysis. Based on the outcomes a questionnaire was developed for the quantitative part of the study which was answered by 160 respondents. Amongst others the results of the study have shown that most of Namibia's "street unemployed" are youth or young adults who lack education and vocational training. Many of them have either never been fully employed before or are long-term unemployed. Their psychological well-being is characterised by high levels of stress experience about not having a job and about their financial and social network situation. Of major concern should be the fact that 66.3% of the respondents scored on a low level of self-esteem, and that 95% of the respondents showed signs of depression. The results of the study not only challenge some of the findings usually found in western countries (for instance, regarding job seeking behaviour) but also Seligman's theory. It became clear that Windhoek's "street unemployed" do not follow the classical patterns of causal attribution which are assumed to cause

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depression. Contrary to the expectations the results rather indicate support for the notion that it is not uncontrollability per se which could cause the depression but the stress linked to it.