Social construction and the sociological imagination
Introduction
Society forms the bases of all groups of people. It is in a society where different morals and personal qualities are acquired. However, society is bound together by the general practices among the people. It involves social construction which is the development of a jointly understanding of reality (Von Gliszczynski, and Leisering, 2016). People understand and learn about themselves through sociology. Moreover, due to some negative societal social construction, some misleading ideas have come up. These ideas have led to universal problems like unemployment in Australia in particular. The high level of unemployment witnessed is as a result of misconceptions and believes that employers have. They prefer enrolling old people and leaving out young ones because they think that young people have little skills and knowledge. Sociological imagination, which is the ability to perceive things socially and how things influence each other also makes people feel diminished. Sociology imagination for example makes a person subjected to unemployment feel discouraged, useless, and overwhelmed (Sharone, and Vasquez, 2017). This is to means that the concept of social construction and sociological imagination can be directly linked to the evident unemployment level in Australia.
Poverty and unemployment
A high rate of unemployment is mainly associated with poverty.it is socially believed that unemployed people will always be witnessed by a high poverty level. Almost 70% of Australians are part-time workers or completely unemployed (Grotlüschen, Buddeberg, Redmer, Ansen, and Dannath, 2019). This is witnessed by a high rate drop in the victim’s low lifestyle standards, poor health care services, poor housing as well as imbalanced diet. Poverty not only affects people without paid wages but also have a long term effect on their children’s future life. Unemployed people are usually unable to pay school fees for their children in time. This makes such children not to perform better in school. Also, such children may end up dropping out of school, an act that will automatically deny them good employment opportunities in the future. This indicates that the chain of poverty will forever circulate in such a family unless God’s intervention. The high poverty level in most cases is socially known for lowering the self-esteem of the victim together with their children.in this situation, sociological imagination becomes real since such people fell useless in society since nothing good can come out of them. They will ever think that they are there to be seen and not to be heard.
The increased crime rate is a major social contract for prolonged unemployment.
It is socially believed that unemployment is a major cause of increased crime rates within society. Unemployment has a significant relationship with the increased crime rate (Hunter, 2018). When many people are unemployed, they mostly tend to be desperate. This makes them carry out criminal activities such as theft and robbery to get to sustain their daily needs. Also, many unemployed youths usually become desperate. They are much stressed since they are no longer able to cater to their new families. This is in most cases make them become drug addicts such as marijuana and excess alcohol consumers, which when taken for a long period may harm their brain. Depression is real to such victims which will always tempt them to involve themselves in criminal activities. Many studies indicate that unemployment is a primary cause of increased criminal activities within society. A large number of youths in Australia are unemployed. This makes them very idle. As a result, they indulge themselves in criminal activities since the idle mind is mainly the devil’s workshop. The government should work towards improving job opportunities for youths to reduce the crime rate.
Increased indebtedness and unemployment
Unemployment is an unfortunate thing that no one can ever like to happen in life, but it occasionally happens to people. It is socially believed that once someone is unemployed, the indebtedness tent to increase in such a person (Grotlüschen, Buddeberg, Redmer, Ansen, and Dannath, 2019). This is because the monthly expenses that such a person was meeting are still there and no enough money to pay them in time. In this state, unemployed people are likely to be isolated by their friends hence feeling being unloved. The victims are forced to cut off some daily expenses that they can live without to cope with life. Life becomes hard and not admirable. Such people are in most cases forced to over-borrow their friends for them to survive. Besides, it becomes hard for them to pay the loan that they might have borrowed earlier from various financial institutions. Continued default rates may force the affected financial institutions to auction their properties for them to recover their principal amount. To this extent the affected person may feel useless hence thinking that they should not live anymore. This is a major social problem common among many people.
Family breakdown and homelessness
Unemployment is mostly associated with domestic violence that finally leads to many family breakdowns. In current days it is assumed that losing a job almost equals losing family. In Australia, domestic violence is rampant due to the high unemployment level (Pawson, Parsell, Saunders, Hill, and Liu, 2018). For instance, when the husband loses a job, he is no longer in a position to sustain his wife and the kinds as before the jab loss, this may bring hanger in the family hence continuous conflict are likely to be witnessed. On the family breakup, the children may end up being homeless since they have no one to take care of them. It becomes even worse when a single mother loses a job. The kids will have no one to take care of them hence may end up even being homeless. People may be homeless due to many reasons. For example, the family breaks up is the most common cause of homelessness in Australia. Homelessness may also be caused by a lack of enough money to get affordable accommodation or may even be due to excessive drug abuse. In Australia, a large number of youths are facing homeless problems hence being a major social issue that should be urgently addressed by the government as well as the human rights department.
Depression
When one is employed, his/her needs are made through the reward he/she receives. However, when one is unemployed, it becomes so hard for him to make sure that his needs are made. This leads to depression and anxiety disorders (Crowe, and Butterworth, 2016.). This causes general mental health. Loss of income makes the social environment to break away since one is not able to keep due to the change in financial stability. However, self-esteem is also lowered. This comes in when one sends so many applications for a new job but the applications are turned down. Moreover, if one used to be the breadwinner in his/her family, the responsibility is left with no one to be in charge. Medal health depends mainly on the environment and the things the mind is exposed to. Mental illness may finally lead to insanity if it is so extreme. However, the illness can curtail if one is exposed to counseling and mental treatment. Moreover, it is of more importance if the unemployed person engages in recreation activities to keep his/her mind in action. Mental illness has a long term negative impact on one’s life and may lead to impairment of the victim.
Social division
Generally, people in the same mission seem to be together most of the time. This is to means that employment brings many people together. However, if one has been retrenched or maybe one is subjected to unemployment, he/she feels so defeated and even loses social class. A social distinction is clearly shown the moment one is retrenched r may be one is in working-age bracket yet no work he/she can do. In most cases, social responsibilities are offloaded from him and one is seen as a burden in society. However, due to unemployment one is forced to change his/her residential area and may be forced to migrate to industrial areas where he can afford. In some other cases, one family is discriminated and this makes them feel isolated (Morley, and Ablett, 2017). In the case of children, if the father is exposed to unemployment, the children lack basic needs like food, education and to some extent, they lack clothing. However, further divisions are evident in families with employed people and those of unemployed ones. The wives whose husbands are employed end up engaging in which may make them seem to be a disgrace to the society. This makes them be discriminated and seems to be of no assistance to the ones whose husbands are employed.
Conclusions
Social construction is generally known as the ideas that are created and accepted by society. They may form their bases in cultural practices and norms of a certain society and therefore can change as the social norms changes. On the other hand sociological imagination refer to the ability to perceive things and to some extent it may make a person feel being of less importance in society. The idea of social construction and sociological imagination has been applied in unemployment as the main social problem in Australia in many ways. Firstly, unemployment is socially believed to be the main cause of poverty in Australia. Unemployed families are in most cases known to be the highly poverty-stricken ones compared to those who receive monthly wages. Secondly, there is a social construction that unemployment is always associated with an increase in crime level since the unemployed youths will be forced to involve themselves in criminal activities such as theft and robbery for them to get money for their upkeeps. Thirdly, there is a social imagination that unemployment will always lead to depression among the victims since they are no longer in a position to provide for their loved ones. Fourthly, unemployment is also believed to cause social division between the employed and the unemployed people. Finally, unemployment is known to be the main cause of many family break ups and homelessness in Australia.