Publish at December 13 2022 Updated December 21 2022
We are in the midst of one more economic crisis. Have you noticed this? If you have a good income maybe a little but not much. Perhaps you perceive it more through your students, the less affluent, the more fragile, the ones with problems that grow in the classroom, at the academic levels, the ones who are less and less present and one day disappear from your horizon...
Some never get trained. Why? Sometimes for personal or skill reasons but also for economic reasons. COVID has damaged the ecosystem of small side jobs. Families' financial situation deteriorates, first after COVID and then with economic restrictions.
"Too many young people around the world are cut off from education and the labor market, which can jeopardize their long-term prospects and ultimately harm the social and economic development of their countries," said Sangheon Lee, director of the ILO's Employment Policy Department. "But the reasons that lead them to become NEET [Not in Education, Employment or Training] are extremely diverse. The challenge will be to combine the flexible approach needed to reach these young people with the strong policies and measures needed to achieve results. A 'one size fits all' approach will not work."
The GET Youth 2020 shows that young people with higher education are less likely to see their jobs replaced by automation. However, they face other challenges as the rapid increase in the number of young graduates in the workforce has outpaced the demand for graduate labor, pulling graduate wages down."
Source: Youth Exclusion from Employment and Training Increases - March 2020
https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_737060/lang--fr/index.htm
"NEET, which stands for Not in Education, Employment or Training is a social classification of a certain category of unemployed people not in education and training."
Wikipedia source: NEET - https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEET
The number of NEETS is increasing worldwide with more or less acute or hidden situations depending on their geolocation in the world. No training, replaceable by machines, these will be the joy of social services for a while longer. Those who study as they can in more accessible education systems, like in France, where public school is free, but not in the USA and even less universities that indebt students long before the end of their studies.
"To understand the chances of individuals to rise or fall from one social position to another, we talk about social mobility. It is broken down into two categories of mobility, i.e., intergenerational and intragenerational mobility.
Intergenerational mobility is concerned with comparing the current situation of individuals with that of their parents or great-grandparents. If we find that all generations occupy the same social position, we consider that there is very little intergenerational mobility and that our place in society is largely determined by that of our parents. This comparison also allows us to understand changes in terms of accessibility to education and health, in addition to the difference in income between generations.
Intra-generational mobility looks instead at individual paths. For example, we can compare a person's first full-time job with the one he or she holds when he or she is 40. In this way, we can see whether one is likely to see his income increase over his lifetime and whether the last salary obtained has a strong link with the first.
So where does the American neighbor stand on this data? According to the report "L'ascenseur social en panne? How to Promote Social Mobility from the OECD" published in 2018, children's income is strongly linked to their parents' incomes and it would take an average of five generations for children from a low-income family to reach the middle income. 42% of children of low-income fathers also earn low wages, the OECD average being 31%. Regarding education, in the case of low-educated parents, only 15% of children obtain a college degree in the United States. This percentage is 60% for children of educated parents. There are also inequalities in terms of social mobility in racialized groups."
Source: the American Dream - Ludovic Dufour - November 8, 2021
http://impactcampus.ca/le-mag/le-reve-americain/
Apparently if there was an American Dream, it is crumbling, since the 1980s. Today, it takes 5 generations to get out of poverty, that's huge. And we're talking about upward mobility here. If it takes 5 generations to move up, it only takes 5 years to fall back into extreme poverty. Bad luck, you say? No, not when the bad luck comes to thousands of people at the same time.
To get a sense of the real situation of students let's go look at a population similar in its fragility to that of students. This is the population of elderly people with a very small income, also dependent and cared for by an institutional setting.
"We're seeing a huge boom in the number of homeless seniors," said Kendra Hendry, a social worker at Arizona's largest shelter. "These aren't necessarily people with mental health or substance abuse issues. These are people who are being pushed to the streets by rising rents."
According to the report, researchers predict that the number of such people will nearly triple in the next decade, and they challenged policymakers from Los Angeles to New York to come up with new ideas for finding shelter for the latest baby boomers as they age, become sicker and less able to pay soaring rents.
"Wandering the sidewalks in wheelchairs and walkers, older homeless people are medically older than they actually are, with mobility, cognitive and chronic problems like diabetes. Many have contracted COVID-19 or have not worked due to pandemic restrictions," the report also said.
According to a 2019 study of older homeless people conducted by the University of Pennsylvania, the U.S. population of homeless people 65 and older is expected to nearly triple from 40,000 to 106,000 by 2030, causing a public health crisis as their age-related medical problems multiply."
Source: 12.4.2022 - The Number of Elderly Homeless Growing in the U.S.
http://french.news.cn/2022-04/12/c_1310553575.htm
The commonality with seniors and students is that they both have very small incomes, and when you have a very small income alord the costs of rent, energy, and food are rising. When those main costs are not affordable, the savings are on food. When you have nothing left to eat on the 25th of the month, you tighten your belt. And, when the fridge is already empty on the 20th of the month, nothing holds and tenants stop paying their rents, landlords stop paying their loans and everyone ends up on the street.
"Precariousness and food waste are two sides of the same coin: the capitalist system. In a context of pandemic that deepens the inequalities, three students from Toulouse decided to systematically search the garbage cans of the signs at nightfall, in order to better provide for their own needs but, also, with the aim of redistributing to those in a precarious situation. Report on the field.
Gleaning. If this word is unknown to you today, it was nevertheless widely used in the past. Historically, gleaning is a right of use on agricultural production: before the appearance of modern agricultural machinery, in the Middle Ages, the custom was that needy people could glean what the harvest had left. Today, gleaning is about salvaging unsold food products that are thrown away, even though they are still edible.
There are several "levels" of gleaning: doing market ends, asking directly at the signs for what they will throw away, and ... rummaging through the garbage. Tons and tons of foodstuffs are thrown away every day. While precariousness, especially student precariousness, is constantly increasing in the context of a pandemic that further deepens inequalities (Oxfam report, The Inequality Virus, January 25, 2021, )."
Source: These students are scavenging against precariousness and waste - Mr. Globalization - 2021
https://mrmondialisation.org/ces-etudiants-font-les-poubelles-contre-la-precarite-et-le-gaspillage/
This situation affects the poorest you may ask? No doubt, but the crisis also affects the middle class. And in particular, the parents who choose to support their children in their studies. These costs fall on them if they support their children and they can be high, even very very high if we stay on the American example.
"Covid-19 has hit many poor and middle-class students around the world hard financially.
In the U.S., it has forced parents to sink into heavy debt to pay for their children's education, sometimes amounting to twice their annual income, according to official statistics cited by the "Wall Street Journal."
The students most affected do not belong to the largest universities, such as Yale or Harvard, but attend institutions that are often historically black-majority or small private colleges.
According to these statistics, the first of their kind on parental debt, at 150 universities, parents borrowed at least $50,000. At more than 500 others, the median level is between $25,000 and $50,000.
The median for parents of graduates of Spelman College, a historically black school in Atlanta, is $112,000. A record for this type of school. Half of the parents used federal funds. That will force them to pay back more than $1,200 a month, the equivalent of the average monthly home loan repayment."
Source: Le lourd endettement des étudiants aux Etats-Unis - Les Echos - 3.12.2020
https://www.lesechos.fr/idees-debats/editos-analyses/le-lourd-endettement-des-etudiants-aux-etats-unis-1270800
Is the American example extreme? No doubt, but elsewhere the picture is not necessarily brighter. Putting aside the school fees of countries that fund education a lot, there are other countries that are more or less helpful. What is happening elsewhere? In Italy, for example. What is the use of studying if at the end there are no jobs for the young people? Crises and mentoring actions help to change the figures. Ten years ago, 34% of Italian youth were unemployed. This situation has caused a significant emigration of young people abroad. Those who stayed did not find work anymore and went on to long studies which lowered the rate of job seekers for a while.
"Italy's unemployment rate remained stable in June at 8.1 percent, but the high youth rate rose again, the National Statistics Institute (Istat) announced Monday. Unemployment among 15-24 year olds rose to 23.1%, up 1.7 points from the previous month. Italy's unemployment rate remains well above that of the eurozone, which fell in May to 6.6%, its lowest level ever."
Source: Italy: unemployment rate stable in June, youth unemployment up - Le figaro - 1.08.2022
https://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-eco/italie-taux-de-chomage-stable-en-juin-celui-des-jeunes-en-hausse-20220801
The 2 crises have passed through which we must add that of the retirement of the papy boomers which has generated a new crisis, that of the shortage of employees. But this crisis does not benefit young people. We are looking for trained people with experience and in Italy you have to be 30 or 35 years old to hope to have a real job.
"On the other hand, Italians are facing a shortage of employment: In May 2022, 444,310 hires are expected, the majority of which (126,690) with a high school degree. On the other hand, the most sought-after occupations are those requiring a university education (45.5% of vacancies), including dentists (68.6% of vacancies), those working in the health and paramedical field (58.9%), and in the mathematical, physical, and computer sciences (58.5%).
This is followed by occupations requiring a vocational credential or degree (43.5% of vacancies), including those in the textile and apparel (72%), motor vehicle repair (68.8%), electrical (57.3%), and wellness (56%) industries. On the other hand, occupations with a shortage of personnel with a high school diploma (39.3%) include mechanical, mechatronics and energy (62.1%), electronics and electrical engineering (47.2%), information technology and telecommunications (46%), production and industrial and craft maintenance (45.2%)."Source: EURES - https://eures.ec.europa.eu/living-and-working/labour-market-information/labour-market-information-italy_fr$
All of these situations are unheard of in our society. At least on this scale. What to do? What solutions on this Christmas Eve in the heart of a winter that promises to be difficult for many?
Happiness is not in product consumption but in emotional security, housing security, food security... So many topics no longer passed on by families, but could be taught and taught in school and university activities.
Give yourself the Christmas gift of inviting to your table people who have less than you. Discover other sides of your students.
Image source: Pixabay Anncapictures
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