On the 24 November
Ms Siv Helen Hesjedal presented the seminar Alternative futures of youth and
work’ at ECSECC. The seminar was based on research conducted for an MPhil in
Futures Studies.
Siv Helen Hesjedal
is a futurist, researcher and facilitator and was employed by ECSECC from 2003
to 2021. She remains an associate of ECSECC and an associate of Nelson Mandela
University.
The starting point
is a familiar one. In August 2021 youth unemployment was reported to have
reached 64.4% and 42.9% for the 15 to24 and 25 to 34 year age groups
respectively, and South Africa is in a long economic downturn. Youth
unemployment in South Africa is ranked among the highest in the world. The
Covid-19 pandemic has further worsened the situation for many young people. The
2021 Africa Youth Survey found that 19% of 4500 young people polled across the
continent became unemployed as result of the pandemic, 8% had their pay cut or
docked, 18% had been forced to move back home and 7% had been forced to enter
the informal economy or take on an additional job to pay their bills. 37% of
youth polled across the continent also had to pause or stop their education.
If the present is a
period of no work, what might the future be? And what will drive the future of
work for young people in South Africa?
Work in this study is understood as constituting a
link between the individual and the economy and serving three main functions:
As a socio-cultural value work is part of the moral core of life; As a social
function, work orientates the present and the future and is central to social
organisation; As an economic function, work is related to the organisation of
labour and capital in production processes at micro- and macro level. At the
most basic individual level, work is an activity performed to gain the
necessities of life.
Siv’s research
outlined four drivers of change over the next three decades. These are the
trends that will significantly affect youth and work:
i. The first is socio-economic and health status of an
urbanising youth population, with education, nutrition and mental health as
pivotal drivers and enablers of intergenerational social mobility.
ii. Secondly there is AI, encompassing, data,
automation, and smart technologies. While there are still limitations to
connectivity and high costs of data, it is assumed that connectivity will be
ubiquitous and costs progressively lowered over the coming decade, enabling
widespread development and application of AI and an increasingly role of AI
determining access to, organisation of and distribution of work.
iii. Climate change is third, with global temperature
increases exceeding 1.5 degrees in the study period, climate related
transformation of energy, industrial, ecological, urban and settlement
systems.
iv. Finally, there is politics, with key drivers across
the three main forms of political organisation: political parties; worker
organisations; and social movements. Closely associated with political parties
is state power, democracy, and the dominant social values. Three parallel
drivers are brought though to this synthesis: firstly, multiple threats to
democracy: declining trust in traditional democratic institutions, the state
and political parties combined with increasing willingness to forego democratic
principles in favour of stability and ‘delivery’; secondly, increasing
securitisation of politics, enabled by surveillance technology; and third, the
seemingly opposing driver youth activism and of persistence of a plethora of
forms of social organisation.
Through exploring
possible intersections of the four drivers of work in the context of three
different images of the future, she generated three alternative scenarios for
the futures of youth and work in South Africa to 2050: ‘Work and security
redefined’; ‘Senzeni Na?’; and ‘Decolonise! Decarbonise!’. In all three,
climate change impact and related socio-technical transition play a major role
and impact on individual and collective behaviour and activity. Embedded and
ubiquitous AI and related technology are present in all three scenarios, albeit
purpose, ownership and uses differ. Work is not absent in any
of the future worlds depicted in these scenarios, but the scenarios explore
different ways of organising and valuing work through alternative political
value systems.
The presentation concluded that in
South Africa, it is not expected that work as a socio-cultural value will be
redundant in the study period (2021-2050). Work will need to be performed, and
if not directly for income, then for individual and collective survival as well
as self-realisation. Work in 2050 may be done in the metaverse, in one’s home
or in a more traditional institutional context. While distribution and
organisation of work may be algorithmic, or algorithmically mediated, it will
be highly unequal. The study explored what work may need to be done in a future
South Africa, particularly in terms of circular economies, ecological
reconstruction, learning and knowledge practice.
The seminar discussed the need for
re-thinking the future, and present, of youth and work and how futures research
enables interrogating assumptions behind policy. While short term solutions
must be put in place for the millions of young people that are without work,
fundamental re-think of the connection between work and income is needed.
Further consideration of Further
consideration of how to enable socially meaningful work and collective
activities that contribute to progressive change.
Please contact ECSECC for more information, or contact Siv directly on siv.hesjedal@gmail.com