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85 Pol. Sci. Q. 1 (1970)

handle is hein.journals/pclscceqry85 and id is 1 raw text is: Unemployment in Developing Countries* DAVID A. MORSE Geneva, Switzerland One of the most significant and sobering lessons of the development effort since World War II is the discovery that social progress and the rising levels of employment on which it depends do not automatically emerge from economic progress. Growth in the gross national product, rising industrial and farm output, and an increase in exports, investments, and exchange reserves have little meaning for the hundreds of millions who continue to live under conditions of bare subsistence or near starvation in the developing countries of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Indeed, in such circumstances the term development would seem to be a serious misnomer, if not a cruel delusion. The problem of employment is of rapidly increasing concern to the governments, employers, and workers of the world, par- ticularly in developing countries. There is anxiety in government when increasing numbers of young people, who have left school and are unable to find jobs, roam the streets in lawless bands. There is anxiety in trade unions about the weakness of their bargaining position in a situation of surplus labor. Employers are anxious about the narrowness of their markets when there are many dependents and few breadwinners. Finally, there is anxiety * An earlier version of this article was presented as a Gabriel Silver Memorial Lecture at Columbia University, Oct. 6, 1969. Volume LXXXV Number 1 March 1970 1