The Necropolitics of Youth Exclusion: Beyond Social Security Handouts in South Africa’s Unemployment Crisis
South Africa has replaced racial apartheid with an economic system that excludes an estimated 15.3 million young people from the formal labour force (including 4.7 million who are officially unemployed and 11 million outside the labour market), resulting in a 45.8% official youth unemployment rate that heavily impacts the marginalised majority. This ongoing economic exclusion is not an unintentional policy failure; it is a deliberate, structural choice.
