Transitioning from Military to Civilian Society: Trials and Tribulations of Integration Process

The Armed Forces require young and physically strong soldiers to win wars. Therefore, about 60000 soldiers from the Indian Armed Forces retire every year, called Ex-Servicemen (ESM) or Veterans. The government has initiated measures including training courses, reservations in government jobs and self-employment schemes for resettlement of ESM. The objectives of the study were to: Investigate the resettlement and integration problems of the ESM, identify and examine ‘Enablers’ and ‘Barriers’ in the process and study and explore the ‘Quality of Life’ as perceived by ESM. The research was confined to the ESM comprising personnel below officer rank belonging to all three wings of the Indian Armed Forces. The survey was conducted online. An online survey software was used to design and share the and record responses. We found that a majority of Ex-Servicemen retire before they turn forty, and a significant minority could not get jobs and resettle. Employment emerged as crucial for resettlement and integration. Higher education, merit and networking, and job reservation helped in obtaining employment. However, government departments did not implement job reservation rules faithfully. Ex-servicemen lacked civilian job skills, and employers did not recognise their military skills. ESM considered government resettling agencies as powerless, ineffective and of little use.

Poverty and Inequality in South Africa: A History

Contemporary South Africa exhibits widespread and persistent poverty and an extraordinarily high level of inequality. Historically, poverty and inequality were forged by forms of racial subordination and discrimination shaped successively by slavery, by colonial settlement and conquest, and by a mining-based industrial revolution in the last quarter of the 19th century. The explosive growth of capitalism and urbanization in a colonial context shaped a set of institutions and social relations—the “native reserves,” migrant labor, pass laws, job reservation, urban segregation, and the like—which reached their most stringent form under apartheid legislation, from 1948 on. The political, social, and economic system of apartheid entrenched white wealth and privilege and intensified the poverty of black South Africans, particularly in rural areas. By the 1970s, the apartheid project began to flounder and the National Party government launched a series of concessions intended to stimulate the economy and to win the support of black South Africans. A historic transition during the late apartheid years saw a shift from labor shortages to a labor surplus, generating structural unemployment on a massive scale. This was a problem that the African National Congress (ANC), in power since 1994, has been unable to solve and which has been a major factor in the levels of poverty and inequality during the democratic era. The ANC has made some advances in combating poverty, especially through the rapid expansion of welfare in the form of pensions and social grants. This has reduced ultra-poverty or destitution. In addition, the provision of housing, water, sanitation, and electricity to black townships has seen significant growth in assets and services to the poor. Yet since 1994, inequality has increased. South Africa has become a more unequal society and not a more equal one. Two factors have caused inequality to deepen: increasingly concentrated income and wealth, and a sharp rise of inequality within the African population. The ANC continues to commit itself to “pro-poor” policies; yet its ability to reduce poverty, and especially to achieve greater equality, appears to be substantially compromised by its failure to reverse or reform the structure, characteristics, and growth path of the economy.

Affirmative Action in Government Jobs in India: Did the Job Reservation Policy Benefit Disadvantaged Groups?

In this study we use the India Human Development Survey (2011–2012) data and Logit model analysis to investigate how far the affirmative action policy has helped in increasing the chances of representation of eligible individuals from scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and other backward classes in government jobs in India. Analysis of the data reveals that the reservation policy in government jobs in India has helped in increasing the chances of representation of people from these groups because they have a higher probability of representation in government jobs than upper caste (unreserved) individuals after controlling for individual and household characteristics.