Thirty-two years after South Africa became a democratic state, the futures of millions of young people in the country are shaped to a large degree by uncertainty, exclusion, poverty and discouragement. As one lens on this scene, unemployment in the age group 15-34 borders on 46%.
I am an educational psychologist who has done 35 years of research on the career-life stories of young people growing up in contexts marked by extreme poverty, exclusion, inequality and disadvantage. These hardships shape their career development and views of the ever-changing world of work.
