Injustice,Uselessness,and Illness: A Qualitative Study of Unemployed Graduates’ Lives in Iran

Abstract

Formal education in Iran, especially higher education, has been a means to smoothen the road to social mobility, provide good jobs, and boost people’s earnings. Now, being a university graduate and remaining unemployed is regarded as a challenge. In addition, governments consider this new unemployment a threat to their legitimacy. It seems that young unemployed graduates experience different problems in their social lives. This study aims to investigate the problems encountered by young unemployed graduates and to identify which aspects of situation provide a threatening condition for the society and government. This study has adopted a qualitative approach to answer these questions. It has been conducted in a Kurdish-Iranian context. The authors used a sample of 22 unemployed graduates and conducted semi-structured interviews with each of the sample members. The data gathered from the interviews were analyzed using the qualitative content analysis method. There emerged several themes that described the unemployed graduates’ lives. Findings show that the definition of job is gender based. Unemployment is interpreted as “illness,” “uselessness,” and “social injustice.” To cope with the unemployment issue, the unemployed graduates have to follow different strategies, including “seclusion,” “continuing education,” or “restarting education.” They experience in such a context different psychological, interactive, and behavioral challenges that sometimes make them adopt an anti-social position. The findings of this research contribute to a clearer understanding of the pathological aspects of unemployed graduates’ lives, which is considered a threat from their own viewpoints.

Keywords

graduate unemployment social injustice qualitative Iran

Introduction

Modern governments regard unemployment as a political, social, and economic threat and a challenge for their administration (Elsenhans, 1987; H. W. Moorhouse, 1931; O’higgins, 1997). They recognize it as the source of such social problems as crimes, violence, political tensions, and physical and mental health (Abbasinejad, Ramezani, & Sadeghi, 2012; Amacher & Boyes, 1982; Compton, Gfroerer, Conwey & Finger, 2014; Janlert, Winefield, & Hammarström, 2015; A. Moorhouse & Caltabiano, 2007). In some developing countries such as Iran, graduate unemployment is a new phenomenon defined as a challenge for society governance and is a subject deserving to be explored scientifically. As a matter of fact, government considers it to be different from other forms of unemployment.

As a developing country with specific economic and demographic structures, Iran is currently facing a large number of unemployed people, including university graduates. Here, by “unemployed graduates” is meant those young academically educated unemployed people with university degrees including bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD degrees. In 2011, more than 40% of university graduates in Iran were unemployed or jobless and 18% of the total unemployed population were university graduates (Statistical Center of Iran, 2016). This is attributed to Iran’s weak economic structure, the youth bulge phenomenon, and the policies adopted by the Higher Education system. It seems that such an unemployment rate is a serious threat to the economic and sociopolitical system. Therefore, understanding their daily life experiences, as unemployed graduates, sheds some light on the threatening dimensions of such a kind of unemployment.

We believe that unemployed young graduates in Iran experience certain challenges different from other unemployed groups. They are academically educated, mostly have lost their feelings of youth, and are old enough to be socially considered ripe for marriage. They are also seeking a stable job and income, and more importantly, they expect to have a job that best fits their levels of education. These students consider themselves to be in different cultural positions and therefore “think that they must have a different social status and consequently such a different position must be reflected in different social and material positions” (Fakouhi, 2010: 26). They are living in a country where formal education and having university degrees have always been a route to making progress in life and obtaining a high socioeconomic status. This particular situation will be more problematic when, despite the high level of unemployment among the university graduates, families spend thousands of dollars for their children’s higher education for them to obtain university degrees and consequently appropriate jobs, especially in the governmental sectors.

There are various studies on unemployment and unemployed groups, namely, youths, women, the elderly, veterans, and graduates. Regarding the unemployed graduate group, many studies have tried to canalize this issue based on statistics and recognize its major economic and social determinants (Altebker & Strome, 2013; GhaneieRad, 2004; Sabouhi, 2001). They have mostly explored graduate unemployment and work quantitatively at the macro level. At the micro level, various studies have dealt with the live experiences of unemployed people in general as well as those of some specific groups such as unemployed people (Bai, 2006; Delaney, Egan, & O’Connell, 2011), veterans (Brannon, 2013), youths (National Youth Council of Ireland, 2010), women (Nichols, 2016), and the elderly (Loretto & Riach, 2009). Most of the qualitative studies have been conducted on people who had been employed but who have lost their jobs. However, there are several studies concerned with university graduates who have been left unemployed for several years after their graduation. Bregnbæk (2016) focused on the relationship between the “fantasy of education as a way of social mobility and actualities,” illustrating how their “fantasy is under socioeconomic and cultural pressures.” She put “physical mobility against existential mobility”; as a consequence, claiming that this contradiction has led to suicide. According to Portwood’s (1986) study, unemployment is related to continuing education, and it is believed that unemployment may help reformulate their character, consistency, and practice of continuing education. Judith (2002: 31) discussed Beck’s “notion of risk and policy relating to education, social security and the labor market.” She explored the causes and indicators of youth at risk of unemployment. Moreover, various quantitative psychological studies have focused on the higher rates of alienation among the educated unemployed youths (Singh & Singh, 1996), a lower level of satisfaction among them (Singh & Singh, 2004), greater drug and alcohol use among the unemployed people (Compton et al., 2014), and lower levels of self-esteem perceived by the unemployed women (Bala & Lakshmi, 1992). These studies illustrate two points. First, unemployment generally has socioeconomic and cultural outcomes, and second, different social categories based on gender, age, education, and occupational status have different life experiences resulting from unemployment. Our basic question relates to the point that unemployed university graduates in Iran must have different specific life experiences when they graduate without the prospect of a job.

In a deep discussion with two unemployed graduates of sociology on this issue and their own experiences of being jobless, we decided to investigate the life experiences of unemployed university graduates. Due to living in a Kurdish society in Iranian Kurdistan, we decided to conduct this research in the context of Bukan, a city with a population of over 150,000 and 9% officially registered unemployed graduates. Our main questions are the following: “How do the graduated unemployed youths perceive (un)employment?” “What strategies do they use to adapt to their unemployment position?” and “What do they experience as unemployed graduates?”

Materials and Methods

Design

We used the conventional content analysis approach (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Neuman, 2011; Ulin et al., 2002) in this research, as we found this approach suitable to explain the perceptions and experiences of the unemployed graduates in the Kurdish-Iranian context.

Sampling

The participants included 11 male and 11 female unemployed graduates, aged between 22 and 30 years. We selected them based on the purposive sampling method. All of the participants were living in Bukan, a Kurdish-dwelling city located in West-Azerbaijan province, Iran. Each interview lasted for 45 to 60 min. We used the data saturation (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) criterion to determine the sample size.

Analysis

Based on the qualitative content analysis approach, the researchers carried out the data analysis manually. They conducted data analysis and data gathering simultaneously. Based on qualitative content analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006), they adopted a six-step process to analyze and report the coded classified data. For example, I think a woman needs to have an appropriate job position (coded as: appropriate job), we cannot do many sorts of jobs, because there is not enough security for us as females (coded as: importance of a secure place for women), I believe that my job must best fit my university degree (coded as: job fit), I am not ready to do every kind of job (coded as: lack of career readiness), and so on. Then, based on the similarities and differences of the classified codes, we extracted new subcategories including a safe and secure place or fit with academic standing. Finally, from these subcategories, we induced the major themes or categories, for instance, a gender-based definition of job.

Furthermore, we used different methods to ensure the validity and reliability of the data. We also ensured the credibility of data analysis using the prolonged engagement and member checking techniques. We used a deep description of all aspects of the phenomenon in question to meet the transferability criteria, and finally, we employed inquiry audit method (Lincoln & Goba, 1985) to ensure the dependability of our analysis.

Ethical Issues

The researchers briefly informed the participants of the objectives of the study. They ensured them about their anonymity as well as privacy of the materials. All of the participants had taken part in the research voluntarily and were given the right to opt out of the study during any phase of it.

Findings

This section was based on the major themes and subthemes that had been extracted from the interview transcripts. The main categories included the “negative perception of unemployment,” “gender-based definition of job,” “distorted identity,” “psychological challenges,” “interpersonal interpretative challenges,” “interpersonal behavioral challenges,” and “different strategies for adaptation to unemployment.” In each of these themes, we tried to better describe these themes as well as the subthemes by quoting the participants.

Negative Perceptions of Unemployment

Unemployed graduates interpret unemployment negatively. They call it “illness,” “uselessness,” and “social injustice.” One of the participants said as follows:

I may call it a disease; a dangerous disease indeed. When you are unemployed after graduation, you may always blame others for that. Sometimes you are persuaded to bother others. I usually like to bother others on the Internet. Mostly I change my ID and make some troubles for people; big troubles. I may call it a mental illness. I do not know how to revenge. It is not easy for me to adapt to unemployment after 6 years of academic education. Sometimes I think it is a way to combat those who have made up this situation.

Unemployed graduates, particularly in this Kurdish context, consider their unemployment to be the result of social injustice. They believe that their unemployment is partly due to living in an undeveloped area and the unequal distribution of facilities and job opportunities. A young male participant who had graduated in sociology said as follows:

It is a complete injustice to have no infrastructure in this region. You know, the government does not invest in Kurdish areas as much as it does in the central areas. You see how deprived these people are in comparison with people from other cities like Yazd or Isfahan. Due to lack of equal distribution of budget or little investment, we have no big industry to absorb the graduated labor forces. It all emanates from injustice, and it is tragic to have no power to struggle with this injustice.

With such perceptions of unemployment, young unemployed graduates are definitely exposed to particular experiences, which cause disorder in their own personal and social lives as well as those of others.

The Gender-Based Definition of Job

How do unemployed graduates define job and employment? The definitions they provide are gender based. This means that gender in the Iranian society precisely plays an important role in their definitions of jobs, and that their criteria to take advantage of job opportunities are quite different.

A Safe and Secure Workplace

The female participants in this study not only mentioned a high income level as a criterion for jobs, but they also emphasized the issue of a “secure” and “safe” workplace. In fact, for a graduated unemployed female, it is not important whether her job necessarily fits her educational level or academic degree. For her, what matters—as underlined in this study—is a safe and secure workplace. It can be inferred from this point that her job should not jeopardize her position as a woman. Maryam, a 25-year-old graduate in general psychology, points out the following:

There existed some jobs for me, but I couldn’t get any of them because of my special conditions. I think work and its place should be appropriate, particularly ethically, for a woman. Well, we cannot do many sorts of jobs because of lack of enough security for us.

A Way to Escape

Work for women is not just for revenue; rather, it is a way for them to escape from their monotonous daily lives. In this regard, Rojin, a 27-year-old graduate in landscape engineering, said as follows:

I think you can finally go through the days if you have a job and it is indeed a sort of hobby for me. The payment is not very important, what matters is that I am not at home. It is a way for me to escape from my daily boring life. Here, being a female mostly means staying at home.

This is another aspect of the definition of job. However, as the qualitative data show, even this idea is tied with the previous one, that is, a secure workplace for females.

Fit With Academic Standing

The male unemployed graduates define job differently. The male participants defined employment as an enterprising and income-based activity which something fits their “social status and academic expertise.” The male unemployed graduates with such a view and criterion may lose job opportunities only because specific jobs hardly fit their academic degrees. On the contrary, this very issue may emanate from others’ evaluations toward them, such as “he does this low job with that degree. One of 28-year-old male participants with the master’s degree in philosophy defined job as follows:

I think an appropriate job is the one which best fits my conditions and my university degree; I can now seek a job and might find one, but the problem is that the job might not well fit my educational degree. If one goes for a job that is not in line with his/her profession or education, they get depressed.

Similarly, Payam, a 27-year-old graduate with the master’s degree in urban planning, said as follows:

When I was younger, I used to do different jobs, as a seller or a worker in brick factories, but as I am now a university graduate, I cannot do every kind of job, for example I cannot be a street vender, selling cucumbers and tomatoes. It’s hard for me. So you should partly agree with me that I should do what fits me and my educational degree. That is partly a reason for my unemployment.

For both genders, unemployment is perhaps partly because of the definition they provided for it. It is possible that there would exist relatively well-paid jobs for them, but because they have a set of criteria for employment in their minds, they continue to remain unemployed. Therefore, it can be said that the definition of work is somehow gender based. Regarding the male unemployed graduates, it is not basically the matter of job vacancies, but the matter of credentials and academic degrees that prevents them from doing certain sorts of job.

Distorted Identity

In the absence of job, what would happen to one’s social identity when all the norms and values and also the social and physical needs involve having an appropriate job? The unemployed informants had something in common, namely, the distortion of their identity, which put their social relations in jeopardy.

Social Constrains

Education has always been considered as a kind of cultural asset for individuals. In this regard, it potentially transforms to an economic asset through an appropriate job. Otherwise, it will be a devastating experience because it is left with a kind of pity for the unemployed graduate in his social relations. The unemployed university graduate would experience certain limitations. The social norms would put this group under pressure, thereby influencing their interactions with others. One of the participants who was a married unemployed graduate with a master’s degree in economics talked about his experience:

When you are married, you are forced to stick at nothing to make a penny. Now I teach some courses at some of these small universities—two or three units a semester—and I have to be optimistic, but the payment is not enough even for a week. Once I was forced to work on an intra- and inter-city cab. Sometimes I had to wear a mask in order not to be known. One night, a passenger got into the cab. It was dark and I couldn’t recognize him. He recognized and greeted me. He was one of my students. He looked very curious and felt pity. Then I truly felt pain in my heart.

Under such conditions, young unemployed graduates feel the burden of social constrains to find a penny for their children and to hide their identity from others.

Gender-Based Constrains

Normative pressures on the unemployed are different for male versus female graduates. In this regard, Shima, a 28-year-old graduate in management, said as follows:

Hopefully I am a girl. If I remain unemployed, nobody asks me why. Anyway, I’ll get married and then again if I find a job, I’ll make myself busy.

Khaled, a 27-year-old graduate with the master’s degree in water structures engineering, says as follows:

Females still have a better status than us, males, in this regard. They are not in charge like us. Work is my pride, my manhood, my life! It is all my existence without which I will not exist! A man must have a job. If you do not have a job, it seems you have no identity! As if you have nothing! Even you don’t count on yourself, let alone others. Unemployment means death for a man.

However, this distorted identity originates from the types of challenges that the unemployed are involved in. It seems that these social forces cause a variety of interpersonal and psychological challenges for them on one hand and make them face interpersonal and interactive challenges on the other. Both these facets play an important role in one’s conception of his or her position in life and others’ conception of this and help determine and shape his or her interactions.

Psychological Challenges

Unemployment imposes manifold psychological pressures for people, including inferiority, disappointment, and confusion, although it imposes greater pressures on males than females.

Inferiority

After at least 4 years of education at university, an unemployed graduate, first of all, has to deal with a sense of inferiority. His efforts have all been in vain and, now, comparing oneself with other uneducated people, he or she finds himself or herself humiliated. Ali, a 28-year-old graduate with the master’s degree in biology, says as follows:

I regret continuing education! I’ve been unemployed for many years despite my master’s degree. Many of my old classmates at school, who failed the courses, never continued their education. My friend, Jafar, has a cosmetic shop, God knows how much money he earns, he is married, and now he is to become a father! What about me? I will never reach his financial position. If I hadn’t continued education, I wouldn’t have wasted my life and time. At least, I could have been successful in my financial life. I’m thinking about all those years I spent on my education. I also spent a lot of money! That’s not just it. . .

These university graduates feel inferior when they compare their current lives with those of their old friends, especially those who have a better economic status. This, in turn, intensifies this sense of inferiority. When one feels inferior, he or she may become disappointed.

Disappointment

When university graduates fail to find the jobs that they have been seeking for many years, they will get disappointed. Such a state of hopelessness can only bring a kind of aimlessness, which in turn leads to confusion. It is in this state that all one’s past dreams and goals suddenly disappear. He or she finds it impossible to obtain his or her goals, which may lead to his or her forgetting the whole past and goals in many cases. All the above cases are among the experiences of the participants in this study. Hiva, a 27-year-old graduate with a master’s degree in rural development, says as follows:

I feel confused. I think of new jobs every day and I think it is in vain. I wonder what to do. Whatever you want to start doing, there appears many barriers on your way!

What sort of barriers?

It is not that simple. If you want to start a job, you must have money, in case you find capital, there appear a lot of limitations that the society imposes on you. There is a huge bureaucracy. If you pass this, then you should have such a strict plan to have a well-paid job. If you make the slightest mistake, your life may be totally jeopardized. You see, Life here is very difficult; when I think about these aspects of life, I wish I did not exist. The most painful is that it is not my fault whatsoever!

About the challenges faced by the female unemployed graduates, it should be mentioned that they are also involved in such a turmoil, as it is a big deal to live in today’s world with only one source of income. Besides, as education has certain impacts on people’s worldview, they are willing to have a better social position in the society so that financial autonomy is an important issue for the females in this context, which is why they seek employment. In this case, Nadia, a 30-year-old graduate with a master’s degree in history, said as follows:

I don’t have any special goal for my life now! I mostly think if I had a job, I would have my hands in my own pockets and I’d never be worried how my life would go on. I’d also be respected in a better way. But it is not that simple!

“To have one’s hands in one’s pocket” is an expression meaning financial independence not only from parents but also from the coming husband. This financial independence also brings a kind of social prestige for girls. Failing to reach this goal makes one feel frustrated and, certainly, influences his or her self-esteem and identity.

Confusion

Confusion follows disappointment. Without any hope for the future, male unemployed graduates may be confused about what they must do. Regarding this point, Hiva said as follows:

You do not know how much stuff a boy at my age needs. He needs a job as it is a prerequisite for his life because the rest of his life greatly depends on this job. You must have a job. Do you realize the depth of the problem? Do you believe I have thought of suicide many times? Now I feel I am really nobody, nothing. I have no money in my life hence my life is in the air.

Now, this shows that the experience of unemployment may make one introvert and take his or her identity from him or her. Nevertheless, these challenges are not limited to the personal level; they may manifest themselves at the interpersonal levels and make the unemployed graduates face certain interaction challenges. Although these two basic types of challenges are not independent from each other in practice, we discuss them separately to better understand their life experiences.

Interpersonal Interpretive Challenges

One of the important issues discussed in the process of interactions between an unemployed person and others is the issue of “unemployment” while being a “university graduate.” During such encounters and negotiations between the unemployed graduates and others in this regard, they may provide certain different interpretations of “the situation.” Accordingly, commentary interpersonal challenges, including harmful silence and expectations of people, will surrender the person.

Harmful Silence

People around a young unemployed graduate, particularly his or her family, mostly keep silent. This kind of silence is harmful for them. They perceive what it means and relate it to their unemployment. Kourosh, a 29-year-old graduate with a master’s degree in mathematics said as follows:

My family never comment about my unemployment, although I wish they would. Their silence is worse than a lot of curse! I feel like dying when I come across them every day, as I go out aimlessly and get back home in vain. It is a terrible sense!

Expectations of People

This harmful silence comes not only from one’s family members but also from other people around them. Findings show that this type of silence is more harmful for male unemployed graduates than their female counterparts, because people have fewer expectations from unemployed females than from unemployed males. Kaveh, a 28-year-old graduate with a master’s degree in animal physiology, said as follows:

I never ever attend any gatherings! When everyone knows that you are a university graduate, the first question springing up in their mind is “why aren’t you an employee [a government clerk]?” Even if you have a good job in the labor market [private sector], they still think that this job does not fit your education! They all think that university education should be followed by having a white-collar job and sitting in an office behind a desk!

When we asked him why he thought so, how he knew people thought that way, he replied as follows:

It is all clear. You can see in their eyes. The pain is doubled in this case. They think I am responsible for my own unemployment! Here all people think of your unemployment as your incompetency! They think that competent people will find themselves a job in any circumstances! Especially one’s friends, you can understand what they think from their laughter.

The above interpretations all came from the interactions of the unemployed graduates with others. Although these interpretations are the result of such interactions, certainly they act in the form of rich meanings replete with independent normative pressures. The attitude of the unemployed graduates toward such interpretations always results in their contemplations and consequent attempts to manage them so as to diminish their pressure, because such interpretations often bring about certain interpersonal behavioral challenges for them.

Interpersonal Behavioral Challenges

The interactive behavioral challenges are those problems encountered by a person during interaction with the people around due to his or her unemployment. It essentially becomes a problem for him or her or may in interactive cases be accompanied by in-depth mental engagement. Isolation and detachment from family and breaking their emotional relations primarily cause these interpersonal behavioral challenges.

Seclusion and Detachment

Pressures felt by unemployed graduates isolate them from other members of their family. Interactive detachment is the main sign of this perception. The only married participant in this study said the following in this regard:

When you are dealing with non-acquaintances, everything is ok. The problem arises in a party or even within your own family, when you have to accept what you know has been affected by your unemployment. You see, when someone is unemployed and is married, he will receive no respect even from his wife. They look at you as a worthless person. I have already left our home so as to hinder any quarrel. Sometimes you do not like to go to your father-in-law’s house. Sometimes I just sit in my room and stay away from everybody, even my wife.

Breaking Emotional Relationships

This challenge happens for females a little differently. Unemployment influences the males directly, while it affects the females indirectly. Golshan, a 28-year-old graduate with a master’s degree in economy said the following in this regard:

My fiancé broke up with me because he was unemployed. We were to get married. He promised he would find a job after his graduation and then we’d marry. After a while, he told me, “I cannot manage even my own life financially! I should continue my education (Ph.D.), hoping to find a job. When I finish my education, I’ll be 30. Then I should go to the compulsory military service for two years. Then I should seek a job. If I happen to be lucky enough to find a job, I will have to work at least for two years to make some money for marriage ceremony. This way, I won’t find any opportunities for marriage with you within the next ten years. You’d better not lose your opportunities for marriage and just go for your life.” Then we broke up!

The above quotations show that lack of job for the male graduates, who are supposed to propose to a female for marriage, brings about problems for both genders. It is clear that they are dealing with this situation and “feel powerless” to do anything. The participants’ words show that they think that nothing is within their control. Males prefer celibacy to being an unemployed husband. The effect of such an imbalance in the interactions and relationships is heard in the words of both males and females.

Different Strategies to Adapt to “Unemployment”

How should an unemployed graduate deal with “unemployment”? Various approaches and practices can be considered in this regard.

Voluntary Waste of Time

According to the participants, they sometimes make themselves busy with a series of entertainments such as music, movies, and virtual social networks just to waste their time. Staying at home and sometimes being away from others means engaging with something else. One of the participants says as follows:

I mostly hang out with people in the virtual world, on social networks. I mean on the Internet. I think this is a good way to spend time; you know, it is just for wasting time. Chatting using an unknown ID can hide your identity. At least there is nobody to know that you are an unemployed graduate or to blame you for your unemployment.

Following Facilitators

Sometimes young unemployed graduates never hope to find a job as they see unemployment as an epidemic phenomenon in the country, or at least they try to lower their expectations, thereby simplifying the process. Sometimes they prefer celibacy to solve the unemployment issue. Some decide to continue their university education or restart education in another discipline, like medicine. In this virtue, they get out of the unemployed community and become students once again. In this regard, Salar, a 26-year-old graduate with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, said as follows:

Because I am single now and our financial status is not so bad, I have got along well with unemployment; and I soothe myself with the thought that unemployment wouldn’t affect my life as long as I’m single.

Another participant said as follows in this regard:

I feel calm, because if it was only me, I would say maybe there is something wrong with me. Well, as there are no jobs and there are no possibilities to get married, I’d like to continue my education. By so doing, I will keep myself busy and it will be much better than unemployment.

One of the interesting strategies to deal with the unemployment issue is to restart one’s academic education in another discipline with more job opportunities, such as medical sciences. One of the participants with a master’s degree in chemistry said as follows:

I know that I have wasted six years of my life studying chemistry. I use the word “wasted” because I have not benefitted from this major and have been left with no jobs and consequently no income. This is why I have decided to go back and restart my education in medical sciences. It is better for me to be a physician even if it takes five more years of my life. I am sure that I will have a good job with a high income.

The decision for a long-term celibacy is one of the interesting and thought-provoking decisions for an individual and for a society. The decision to do so can be a solution compatible with the unemployment situation on one hand, and may be a sign for a struggle with or a revenge on the social norms and conditions on the other. When an unemployed graduate finds himself or herself in the face of a social system that cannot provide him or her with an appropriate job and the religious values of the society make him or her “get married” to achieve “social credit,” then he has to victimize one for another, meaning that he has to give away marriage just to retaliate against the society. One of the participants, who was a 31-year-old graduate with a master’s degree in urban geography, said as follows:

How do you think I can adapt myself to this situation? I should either put my head down like a sheep and do what is dictated by the people around or I should choose my own way and stand against everyone. Indeed, when I see that the government is unable to use the human resources properly, when it cannot create jobs, when thousands of people like me are not important for the officials, and nevertheless they want me to get married and go under the burden of raising a family and thence to keep silent and be busy with a bread and butter task, what do you expect me? I think to stay single is the best choice ever. I can make my bread and butter myself and, at least, I shouldn’t accept responsibility for another. I don’t know whether this attitude is a kind of revenge of the situation. I don’t know.

Discussion

This study began with the fundamental idea that an unemployed graduate has special experiences of unemployment. To understand this particularity, we raised two questions: “How does an unemployed graduate interpret (un)employment and interact with it?” and “What does he or she experience in this situation?” Analyzing the contents of the deep interviews with unemployed graduates, we came to several main categories which we use for discussion.

Perceiving unemployment as “social injustice,” “illness,” and “uselessness” is among the interpretations that unemployed graduates have of their own situation. The interpretations that they provided varied in terms of gender; the negative aspects of unemployment were more serious for the males than for the females. As unemployed graduates, they had a gender-based definition of “employment”; females mentioned safety and a secure workplace as the criteria for their employment, while the male unemployed graduates were more likely to consider the type of job that fits their university degree and academic discipline. The female unemployed graduates feel much more convenient with unemployment than do the male graduates. In fact, coping with this situation is much more difficult for the male unemployed graduates than their female counterparts. Moreover, to cope with the unemployment issue, unemployed graduates have to adopt different behavioral strategies, including continuing their education, seclusion, restarting academic education in another discipline, and immersion into the virtual world. There are many common points between the unemployed male and female graduates about their experiences. Experiences of disrupted identity, psychological challenges, interactive and behavioral challenges with others, and interpretive challenges in different life situations are among their major experiences. Each of these categories contains separate concepts clearly revealing the qualitative aspects of those experiences.

The main idea of the present study was centered on the “particularity of the unemployed graduates’ experiences.” The feeling of “uselessness,” “illness,” and “social injustice” are their particular interpretations of unemployment. Emphasis on social injustice binds the root of their unemployment to the institutional level of the society in one way or another. In addition, the sense of uselessness shows their perceptions of their positions as unemployed graduates in terms of productivity. Another particularity is that the female unemployed graduates consider themselves as job applicants, while they would certainly did not expect to have a job if they did not have any academic education; in other words, they consider themselves to deserve appropriate jobs, thanks to their academic degrees. In another sense, the unemployed graduates’ definitions of their jobs are gender based. Emphasis on a secure and safe workplace, particularly a separate workplace from males, is undoubtedly linked to the idea of protecting their femininity and vulnerable position in the Kurdish-Iranian culture. In addition, a feminine workplace can pave the way for the employment of a female jobless graduate. As the respondents pointed out, they have been offered many jobs, which they have not been willing to accept for the above-mentioned reasons. The male unemployed graduates stress that their jobs should fit their university degree, which, in some cases, has caused them to lose some of their job opportunities. It illustrates something special: graduate unemployment is somehow affected by their definition of employment. For example, a senior economist would hardly accept a driving or shop-keeping job, and an unemployed female graduate would rarely accept an industrial occupation in an environment most often staffed by males. It is also noteworthy that higher education has always been defined as a way of social mobility in the Kurdish-Iranian context. When it does not help this mobility, then people may come to unpleasant experiences.

The findings show some of these particular experiences. When unemployment is coupled with a high university degree, then this burden load will double. It will disrupt people’s lives and put a heavy burden on their social and individual lives. Failing to find a job commensurate with one’s university degree and field of study indicates the uselessness of education and its lack of function in the market. The participants’ interpretations of “inappropriateness” of their education and “comparing” their own unfavorable positions with the “favorable” positions of the uneducated psychologically and interactively impose a lot of pressure upon them and certainly affect their identity and self-assessment. A blurred identity, along with psychological and interactive challenges, provides grounds for the seclusion of unemployed graduates, especially the male ones. Unemployment among graduates at an age when they are seeking a job with an income, as well as their desire to marry, undoubtedly disrupts their long-term life plans. In the Kurdish-Iranian society, remaining unmarried till the age of 30 is considered a problem for both genders (from the point of view of both the government and people), while the marriage itself imposes a fairly heavy financial burden on males. This situation shows the very particularity of these graduates’ experiences of unemployment. All of these cases have been confirmed by some quantitative (Bala & Lakshmi 1992; Judith, 2002; Singh & Singh, 1996, 2004) and qualitative studies (Bregnbæk, 2016; Nichols, 2016). The participants have been observed to have low level of self-assessment and life satisfaction on one hand and have an increased level of alienation on the other hand. Furthermore, being in the position of an unemployed graduate has undoubtedly been the source of frustration, confusion, and inferiority, which Bregnbæk (2016) found in the phenomenon of suicide among Chinese students.

Unemployment can be interpreted based on theoretical approaches as well. Goffman (1963) places unemployment in the second category of social stigma. Unemployed graduates find unemployment an obstacle to their interactions, something that expresses their identity. The research findings show how prevalent this type of perception is. But unlike Goffman’s definition of the stigma of unemployment, it can be said that the unemployment of university graduates can also be reflected in their bodies. An unemployed graduate can interpret his or her “body” as “useless” or “useful.” Considering one’s “body” useless severely disturbs its interactions. Seclusion, as a strategy to cope with unemployment, reflects this issue: hiding from others the body that lacks economic efficiency and productivity. This reminds us of Merleau Ponty’s view (Matthews, 2006) of the “lived experience,” considered to be a mental and physical issue. For them, unemployment is equal to the absence of their “bodies” in their jobs, income generation, and productivity.

Finally, the findings of this research are in line with the symbolic interaction perspective (Turner, 1998) and identity formation. In this approach, identity formation is the result of interactions between individuals, that is, the interaction between “self” and “the other.” Unemployed graduated youths define another identity for themselves during interaction with others. Many aspects of this identity are realized in some of the above-mentioned categories in this study.

Conclusion

The present study indicated that the unemployed graduates’ experience of unemployment is a special problem with certain consequences. The notion of unemployment as a form of social injustice directly targets institutional forces, especially the state. Moreover, they have an age and a level of education that have taken away from them any power of insurrection and revolution. In fact, some other issues including employment and job seeking have primarily occupied their minds. Thus, they are pushing for seclusion rather than rebellion in dealing with unemployment. The unemployment pressures which unemployed graduates experience are heavier than those experienced by uneducated-unemployed people. As a result, the former can have more destructive consequences in personal and social terms. These conditions cause them to turn into anti-social people. This is why unemployment, particularly among university graduates, is considered a threat to social and political development.

Research Limitations

One of the limitations of this study is related to addressing the experiences of both genders. In this regard, the research has not been able to comprehend in depth the gender dimensions of the unemployment experience. It attempted to find the common backgrounds, but it has highlighted only the differences. Methodologically, using the qualitative content analysis method, the researchers failed to explore and extract the participants’ lived-experiences. Finally, translating interviews from Kurdish into English was another limitation that we faced concerning the participants’ interpretations and experiences.

Implications

The most important aspect of this research is the introspective use of the unemployed graduates’ views, that is, from the unemployed graduates’ perspectives. The unemployed graduates themselves interpreted their own position and described their experiences. Unlike purely statistical and quantitative approaches, this approach dealt with the roots of the problems mostly attributed to unemployment from the perspective of a particular group of the unemployed population. It clarified a better understanding of the implications of some of these consequences. It was explained why graduate unemployment cannot lead to their social aggressive rebellion but can result in de-legitimization of education and the sociopolitical system.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Mehdi Rezaei

Author Biographies

Nashmin Khezri hold MA in sociology and specialized in social problems. She has received her M.A from Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran, and now she is independent researcher. Her academic interest is social problems.

Mehdi Rezaei hold PhD in Demography and specializes in qualitative demography. He has received his PhD from Tehran University, Iran, and now is teaching at Payame Noor University (PNU). His academic interests are qualitative methodology in population studies and anthropological demography.

Mozafar Aram hold MA in sociology and specialized in social identity. He has received his M.A from Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran, and now he is independent researcher. His academic interests is social problems and qualitative methodology.

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