By Martin Padulla for staffingamericalatina

There is a connection between these two scourges. Phenomenon such as school dropouts and labor informality complete a picture of backwardness, usually caused by ideological prejudices that contrast the most basic moral values. 

Certain countries in the region are living a representativeness crisis. Politics does not manage to solve people’s problems. Ideological prejudices and concepts that take us back to the past, push societies away from legality, but, most importantly, from what is morally acceptable.

Ethics is the study of moral values that guide the human behavior in society. The ethical dilemma occurs when customs, rules, taboos and conventions are affected.

The empirical corroboration shows us that we are facing serious conflicts. It is not possible to regulate an individual’s behavior to achieve collective wellbeing and harmonious and peaceful coexistence, if illegality is accepted or permitted. Values such as justice and freedom are basic. Is it valid to negotiate with those who represent illegality? Does representativeness suffice?

Citizens live in a constant ethical trial. They must reason and define what action, behavior or attitude is the most appropriate at a given time regarding the rules and values set by society. An interesting question could be: what are those in each society?

For those who represent citizens, there is a greater responsibility. Politics must offer vital archetypes of essential behaviors that are worth of being imitated. The value of example is key as it works in human relationships as a rule that secures either progress or involution.

Older people tend to use the example of the past experience as a stimulus to overcome uncertainty. But the truth is that new problems cannot be solved with old solutions. Given the lack of solutions, young people are already finding new strategies to deal with uncertainty. The amazing and disruptive entrepreneurial ecosystem that exists in Latin America might be the most tangible reality of some of these positive strategies. Violence, intolerance, and outrage might be the answer of those who believe there are no equal opportunities and feel excluded.

Now, going back to politics and their huge debt towards society, it is important to point out that everyone, and not just young people, needs anchoring to be supported and not feel alone. Values can only be transmitted through coherence between what you say and what you do.

As the Spanish philosopher, Javier Gomá, says, the persuasive force of the virtuous example that generates civic customs “is capable of promoting the authentic emancipation of the citizen”. Unfortunately, in our region there are representatives who, just by analyzing their discourses, show their disregard towards the law.

In Latin America and the Caribbean 12.5 million underage kids work or perform tasks that should be prohibited according to ILO Convention 182 on the worst forms of child labor. A moral abomination and a crime. Many of them cannot be full-time kids as they are forced to go to school and work. In most cases, when they face poor performance at school, or are forced to make a decision, they choose to leave school.

Certain countries in the region pursue the zero poverty goal. The first objective must be zero child labor.

The shameful situation of children working occurs while we experience permanent changes that demand equal opportunities (particularly educational opportunities) for kids so they can have access to the labor market once they enter into youth and adulthood. Quality public education that includes children and young people in every place of every country of the region is an essential requirement to pursue development.

If we analyze the situation among young people, we can see the following: 10 million unemployed youngsters, 22 million youngsters who are neither studying nor working, and 27 million youngsters who have an informal job. According to ILO, only 37% of young Latin Americans contribute to social security and barely 29% contribute to the pension system. Young people with little decent work. Once again, the moral and the legal in front of our eyes.

When we analyze the general picture, we observe that 134 million workers do not have a formal labor contract and 25 million people are unemployed in the region.

In this context, certain voices from politics question professional practices; others attack the promotion of formal youth employment; others object to temporary work, the main entrance door for young people to the formal labor market and a guarantee of decent work; others mistrust the articulation between private and public employment services to train on skills based on demand during transitions; many debate on quality of the job, but never on the quality of the workers, and they talk about unemployment but do not address the five times bigger problem of informality.

It is a paradox that those who refute formal temporary labor, endorse the impossibility of having full-time childhoods. Those who say they care about the most vulnerable, condemn them to poverty, informality and the loss of their rights as citizens with their anachronistic theories

These are voices that use categories from the past century and seem not to notice the great changes the world is going through, the development of technology and its impact on the world of work. They look insensitive to the evidence that the losers are those workers with lower levels of qualifications and education, those who have lower incomes, who develop the most replaceable tasks due to the machines revolution. They do not understand that the labor market must be modernize in order to adapt it to the sophistication and fluency that the knowledge economy demands and that, most importantly, this is not a First World issue, it is a problem that affects us all.

The indispensable debate must involve the urgent strategies to be adopted in order to transform this problem into an opportunity. I have frequently addressed the issue of the demographic bonus and the urging need to make the most of it. On several other occasions, I delved into the issue of employability and the urge to train people in skills that are based on the demand.

The Nordic countries seem to be the ones that developed the best strategy with a deregulation that protected workers with high quality social and training programs (called flexicurity), maintaining and even improving there historically high levels of economic activity.

These countries are also an example in terms of educative innovation. They were the first to understand that for years we have focused on the conventional idea of alphabetization, linked to learning how to write and read, but that technology and the digital media have changed the meaning of this concept and created new challenges for teaching and learning. They are the ones who are looking into the future instead of focusing on the past. And they are willing to change, revise, evaluate, measure and manage.

They might also be the ones that, in an organized environment, with clear rules, but thinking in terms of decades and not just months, understood that change is constant and that imperfection is something we must live with. How are we supposed to teach students to become life-long learners if we do not teach them to accept imperfection? Learning, in itself, is an imperfect process, and there are no perfect teaching methods. However, we cannot give up in training perfectible citizens, workers or entrepreneurs during the entire lifetime of knowledge society.

Maybe these are the countries that are closer to making Berger and Luckmann’s concept of social construction of reality palpable, adding an innovative vision and addressing the permanent interaction among education, employment, entrepreneurship and lifelong training.

Every Latin American country must quickly find the model that enables it to modernize the dynamic education-work-entrepreneurship, while ensuring quality, innovation and equal opportunities. It is an ethical imperative. Our children and youth are watching us.

About Martin Padulla

Founder and Managing Director of staffingamericalatina. Martin Padulla is Sociologist (USAL), MBA (UCA) and labour markets expert. He published “Flexible Work in South America” and “Regulatory framework for private employment agencies in Latin America” two books about the new realities of work in Latin America.

Follow Martín Padulla on Twitter: @MartinPadulla

mpadulla@staffingamericalatina.com

About staffingamericalatina

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