Qualitative study: Lived experiences and coping strategies of unemployed male adults in Mamelodi township, South Africa

Abstract

In South Africa, unemployment remains a significant challenge, with its most severe impacts concentrated among the Black population. Although unemployment is pervasive in South Africa, scholarly literature has paid limited attention to the lived experiences of the unemployed, particularly within township economies where the plight of unemployed men remains underexplored. This study aims to explore the experiences and coping strategies of eight unemployed male adults in the Mamelodi Township using a qualitative research approach embedded in an interpretive phenomenological design. A purposive and snowball sampling technique was used to recruit participants, while data were collected using semi-structured interviews. The study was guided by an integrated theoretical framework combining the Ecosystemic Theory to locate the men within their broader social context, and the Transactional Model of Stress and Coping to analyse their appraisals of and responses to unemployment. By integrating these lenses, the study resists individualising pathology, instead situating coping responses within the broader ecosystem of systemic marginalisation. The most salient themes that emerged were limited opportunities, psychological distress, and suicidal ideation that led to harmful coping strategies that provided short-term relief but reinforced long-term unemployment. The findings highlight the need for male-friendly mental health interventions that directly address the psychological distress and suicidal ideation identified in the study and call for a critical re-evaluation of poverty alleviation policies that respond to hegemonic masculinity to ensure they acknowledge and address the psychological trauma of unemployment, rather than focusing solely on economic metrics.