Unemployment and Social Exclusion

The concepts of unemployment and social exclusion are mutually interlinked. It has been observed that unemployment leads to irregularities in the income pattern within huge sections of the society. This in turn implies that the individual, who has lost his job or is about to lose his job faces economic hardship.Successive periods of unemployment may lead to social exclusion under extreme circumstances. Even though, most of the times such situations are more psychological in nature and are results of the perceptions of the unfortunate individual.

In case an individual is unemployed there are chances that individual would receive financial assistance from a variety of sources. Nowadays, the unemployed people can get financial aid in the form of unemployment insurance programs. However, there is only a certain period of time, till which the individual may be insured against unemployment.

These options are available in the United States of America and in many other countries of the world. The insured has to make sure that he is able to procure a job in the meantime. If he is unable to do so he would have to look for other avenues of financial assistance.

It may happen that the unemployed worker fails to be gainfully employed within the period of insurance coverage. Once the unemployment insurance schemes get expired, the jobless workers find themselves under tremendous hardship. Under this situation they have no other option left but to borrow and it is also obvious that they fail to repay within the stipulated period of time.

This in turn makes sure that the individual is caught in a debt trap, a vicious cycle that keeps on repeating itself and from which the individual can hardly come out. The credit records of these individuals are damaged to an extent that they never manage to get off the block with the conventional or institutional lenders. They have to go for the other lenders who charge higher rates of interest and also offer unfavorable repayment terms.

This has different implications in the rural areas. It has been observed that the poor peasants who lose their own fields in a way or are unable to pay their dues, become bonded laborers, who have to slug it out in the fields that belong to others and, that too, for minuscule returns. What happens as a result of this is that these peasants undergo tremendous hardships and immense psychological trauma.

The direct offshoot of these problems, at both the rural and urban level, is that these people are not able to offer the best facilities to their wards and immediate dependents. This is especially applicable in case of healthcare and education. Since these people are not well equipped to handle the rigors of life they also have problems in getting jobs for themselves. This only compounds the problem of social exclusion among the jobless workers.