Future-making: Youth, hope and aspiration in urban South Africa
- Dr. Nirvana Pillay
Young people in South Africa live in contexts of deep and widening social and structural inequality.
They are often located between reductive, binary discourses of hope and hopelessness. High levels of unemployment, inequality and poverty, compounded by health challenges like HIV, early unintended pregnancy, and GBV, frame a discourse of hopelessness, especially for young women. The potential of a demographic dividend as an opportunity for development and possibility frame a discourse of hope.
My ongoing research in low socio-economic urban areas in Johannesburg highlights how young people aged 18 to 24 in low-income settings adjust their aspirations while navigating recalcitrant barriers to education, employment and recreation. Most youth do not achieve good enough matriculation results for higher education and TVET college admission, and high costs, limited time, and lack of support stop them from improving their grades. Those who desire formal employment are immersed in endless cycles of job searches and applications. Short-term employment opportunities are often precarious, uncertain and dangerous. Income generation, therefore, requires a mix of entrepreneurship, flexibility and opportunity, but facilitators like social capital and mentoring are often absent. Young people adapt to these realities by volunteering, working in precarious short-term jobs, or participating in entrepreneurial endeavours, such as car washing, eyelash treatments, and the sale of high-end second-hand goods.
South Africa has a wide-reaching policy landscape to address challenges facing youth. Initiatives are evident in some individual stories and are facilitated through local NGOs, but rarely do they reach most youth nor endure beyond six to twelve months. They seldom create opportunities that launch trajectories towards aspirational futures. This time between school completion and ‘whatever’s next’ is fluid and uncertain, and the uncertainty that characterises this compromises the mental health and wellbeing of many young people.