Unemployment and Underemployment as Indices of Nigerian Youths’ Mental Health and the Place of Agricultural Revolution as a Panacea: Implications for Counselling

Abstract

Nigeria has a population of about 166.2 million as recorded in 2012 and 113 recognized universities apart from poly-techniques and colleges of education. These higher institutions of learning  are churning out graduates in their thousands who have nothing to engage them from year to year in their thousands. The focus of this is to examine the psychological impacts of unemployment and underemployment on the mental health of Nigeria youths and the place of good governance and agricultural revolution as  panacea. Research hypotheses were raised to guide the study. A self-constructed 25 item questionnaire was used to elicit information from the 167 subjects for the study. The content validity was determined while its reliability was as carried out through a test- retest method with a coefficient of 0.75. The data collected were subjected to appropriate descriptive and inferential statistics. The results revealed that the perceived level of stress due to unemployment among both male female were not significantly different. The results further indicate that irrespective of how long youths have remained unemployed and their level of education, the preserved level of stress are not significantly different. Recommendations were made on designing initiatives to improve the citizen’s wellbeing through good governance and intensive development and revolutionisation of the agricultural sectors.

Keywords: Unemployment, Adolescents, Agriculture, Mental health, Counselling implications