Urban unemployment in Papua New Guinea - it's criminal

Abstract

Much has been said about the enormous unemployment problem in Papua New Guinea?s urban centres and the terrible crime situation which it has generated. The gravity of these problems is profound yet little is really known about the extent of unemployment and crime. This article reports on a survey carried out in 1995 on unemployment and crime in Papua New Guinea. Over 32,000 people in urban centres depend on crime as their main source of income, representing 14.8 per cent of the urban workforce. Prostitution accounts for 13.6 per cent of the female urban workforce. The survey found that the earnings of criminals do not differ significantly from the relatively high wages of unskilled labour in the formal sector. With this in mind the remedy to the crime problem is not so much job creation, but an attack on the incentives for crime.