The unemployment trap: an investigation of the coping mechanisms of unemployed graduates in Nigeria cities

I •A The Phenomenon of Unemployment: A General Overview
The most significant by-product of the process of modernization is perhaps the high concentration of people in urban centres. The demographic transition theory which summarizes the phenomenon holds that
(a) development releases population· from rural agriculture to urban industry and, therefore,
(b) an ever increasing majority of the national population will reside in the urban sector.
For many countries, the process of the transition has had both salutary and tragic or dysfunctional consequences. , Among the
tragic effects is the ·problem of unemployment. This problem is especially grave for the emergent underdeveloped nations
with their weak industrial base and material poverty.
The phenomenon of unemployment is an unwholesome but eloquent testimony of society's inability to maximize the utility
of labour. Thus a veritable national asset is turned into a burden and the implicit advantages of increased.productivity and.consU:fllptive capacity arè foregone. Many scholars have attempted to catalogue the social consequences of unutilized
labour. For example,unemployment could translate into vagrancy, starvation, malnutrition, loss of status and indebtedness. Moreover, unemployment represents unfulfilled aspirations which may lead to frustration, a situation which breeds a feeling of resignation, hopelessness and loss of confidence. On account of these the unemployed may become sociopathological...