Understanding Conflicting Developmental Goals and Employment Issues

Conflicting Developmental Goals

Developmental goals can be conflicting when the fulfillment of a goal for one group of people comes at the expense of another. What is development for one may not be for another, and it can even be destructive for others.

• Example 1: A wealthy industrialist may have the developmental goal of building a dam to generate electricity for a new factory, which would increase profits and create jobs. However, this same dam would displace local farmers and villagers who depend on the land that would be submerged, thus destroying their livelihood and traditional way of life.

• Example 2: A rich farmer wants to dig tube wells to irrigate his fields and increase crop yield. This goal, however, can lead to the over-extraction of groundwater, which reduces the water table and negatively affects small, poor farmers who rely on shallow wells for their crops.

Seasonal Unemployment vs. Disguised Unemployment

• Seasonal Unemployment occurs when people are unable to find work during certain months of the year. This is common in sectors like agriculture, tourism, and construction, where demand for labor fluctuates with the seasons. For example, a farmer may be employed during the sowing and harvesting seasons but remains unemployed for the rest of the year.

• Disguised Unemployment is a situation where more people are employed than are actually needed to perform a task. In this scenario, even if some of the workers are removed, the total output or production remains unchanged. This is often seen in the agricultural sector in rural areas, where an entire family works on a small plot of land even though two or three people would be enough to do the work. The remaining members are underemployed or "disguisedly" unemployed.