Career Guidance and Counseling in the Context of Unemployment and Vulnerability: A Case Study of South Africa

Abstract

Despite almost 2 decades of democracy, the South African political economy is still characterized by high levels of unemployment and poverty coexisting with obscene levels of inequality in the distribution of income, wealth, land, educational attainment, and other assets. Race and gender remain crucial stratifying factors in South African society. The divergence between the country’s relatively high economic status (as measured, for example, by gross domestic product per capita) and its relatively low development status (measured, for example, by United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Index) is one of the largest internationally, implying that the benefits of economic growth are not being distributed equitably.