Children, young people, and unemployment / the Save the Children International Union.

  • Save the Children International Union.
Date:
[1933-1934]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Children, young people, and unemployment / the Save the Children International Union. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    INTRODUCTION The spread of unemployment to-day is a standing menace io the economic and social structure of society, and the Save the Children International Union, whose business it is to follow closely the development of Child Welfare throughout the world, deems it highly important to ascertain and define the effects of the enforced idleness of vast numbers of adults on the moral and physicai health of the younger generation. To what extent has parental unemployment and the con- sequent diminution of family incomes reacted on the health of the child, — on its mental development, its character, its attitude towards parents, brothers, sisters, companions and society at large? What of the age-group that is leaving elementary and tech- nical schools, or concluding its time of apprenticeship, without hope of finding a livelihood, or having found one, of keeping it? and which is thus liable to forget all it has learned and to acquire habits of idleness, thus making it extremely difficult to become a productive member of the community, whenever such an opportunity may offer in the future? How far have public and private child and youth welfare organisations been affected by the impoverishment of the masses? What new tasks are facing them to-day, and how have they met, or tried to meet the situation? The gravity of these questions is evident. The world now includes some twenty-five million registered unemployed. If we add the total of those dependent on them we reach a figure of at least one hundred million human beings suffering directly from lack of work; without counting the crowds of artisans, agri- culturists, shop-keepers and small producers of all kinds, whose business is almost at a stand-still owing to the diminished pur- chasing powers of so many customers. If close on one-fifth of the population of a country produces nothing, and must be supported by the other four-fifths who cannot let them perish of hunger and cold, a number of social problems arise, clamouring for solution. Among these the problem of child welfare is not the least urgent, for it is a patent fact that the future of the rising generations is now imperilled. The Save the Children International Union has been repeatedly asked by its member organisations, — and the same idea has been suggested by experts in various countries —_ to undertake a study of the effects of unemployment on children and young