Impacts of Unemployment on Graduates in Bangladesh: A Case Study

Abstract

The study attempts to explore the impacts of unemployment; how the state of unemployment is becoming the cause of social, economic, physical, personality, and psychological costs on the unemployed graduates with identification of reasons for unemployment in Bangladesh. The study area was the unemployed graduates of the social science faculty of the University of Dhaka. The study followed a qualitative approach by using the case study method. Capacity mismatch, corruption, the incapacity of the graduates, absence of job specialization, outdated curriculum were the leading reasons for unemployment, the study identified. The impacts of unemployment are invariably alike on graduates-mental depression, embarrassment, socio-economic vulnerability, erosion of inner potentiality, degradation of personality, and frustration. The study explored that sense of self-esteem erodes due to peer group pressure and their attitudes towards unemployed graduates. The findings significantly guide that Bangladeshi graduates, who hailed from lower and middle strata, lack in entrepreneurial spirit and are bound in cyclical craziness to secure a job primarily a government job. It recommends for further evaluation of Bangladesh’s education systems, the focus on higher education which will meet the capacity mismatch between market demands and education; and changes in attitudes-overindulgence on government jobs, associated with cultural factors, must be needed to minimize the vulnerabilities. Academia, learners, policymakers, scholars, policy advocates will get significant insight from the findings of the study.