Unemployment and Political Extremism in Zimbabwe, 2000- 2010

Innocent Sitima

doi:10.22610/jebs.v5i11.451

Abstract

Unemployment prevalence among the youth is largely tribute to political extremism in politically disoriented countries. The paper examined the effects of political extremism in Zimbabwe on the high unemployment statistics in the period between 2000- 2010. The study applies the Zimbabwean quarterly data to explore the relationship among variables by using interrelated Tobit econometric procedure. The study findings indicated that 82.97 percent of the Zimbabwean population is unemployed, if the country is unstable and there is political violence. The partial coefficients showed that when political extremism persists, and is not controlled, unemployment is likely to increase by almost 4.29 percent increase in each period.

Highlights

The general opinion is that unemployment prevalence among the youth is largely tribute to political extremism in politically disoriented countries
The Zimbabwean statistical office (CSO) most likely due to the lack of resources were not be able to collect the data in these sectors more over a number of these sectors were for the most part an illegal informal sector and to access appropriate statistics in such areas was regarded as almost impracticable
Data sources: After satisfying the sample selection the study conducts the Tobit model using data from primary as well as different secondary sources with the unemployment figures given as a weighted percentage of the total labor force in Zimbabwe in the labor and social protection, World Bank WDI/ GDF while the political stability statistics are Annual statistics from the survey by the World Bank Institute on political stability/ no violence figures derived from the African Development Indicators

Summary

Introduction

The general opinion is that unemployment prevalence among the youth is largely tribute to political extremism in politically disoriented countries. In 1980, Zimbabwe’s political arena was rather stable with only one foremost party, the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU- PF) dominating after independence in 1980 and in the subsequent two decades, this was ought to change as a new and stronger opposition party was formed Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the late 1990s this party was rather formed on the political ideology that the ruling party was abusing power and failing both the economic as well as addressing the quandary of inequality in the country from the time when Zimbabwe gained its independence from the British government in 1980 This posed intense pressure on the ruling ZANU-PF government in a bid gain support from the masses both parties engaged in both left and right wing political extremism which resulted in the economy further plunging into an aggravated economic calamity, with trade and employment mostly affected. The main segment hit by these political radicalism was the employment macroeconomic variable, in particular when unemployment rate was as high as 98 percent by 2008 and production capacity of most important manufacturing cycles where way below 50 percent plus some companies either considered closing production all together or relocating to nearby countries such as Zambia and South Africa where political conditions where more favourable

Estimation techniques

Tobit model and the Heckit technique

Findings

Conclusion and directions for future research