[Unemployment and the mental health of youth.]

Unemployment and joblessness are extremely disruptive among youth and the more they continue, the more they may cause deep troubles to the different aspects of the mental health of those same young people. In this article, first the effects of unemployment on the physical health of the young is treated, and the impact of unemployment on the decade of the thirties is compared with that of unemployment in the eighties. Then we look at the reactions to employment, the three stages crossed by adolescents in search of work and the attacks on the mental health of the young, that is : independence, the reaction of worry, the diffusion of identity, self esteem, guilt and shame, anxiety and fear, anger, depression ; the effect on family relations, the disruptions in the organization of free time, the rise in the rate of suicide, the growth in drug and alcohol consumption, and the rise in criminality.