The expression ‘work their way out of their situation’ means

  In many places in the world today, the poor are getting poorer while the rich are getting richer and the programmes of development planning and foreign aid appear to be unable to reverse this trade. Nearly all the developing countries have a modern sector, where the pattern of living and working are similar to those in developed countries. But they also have a non-modern sector where the patterns of living and working are not only unsatisfactory but in many cases are even getting worse.

  what is the typical condition of the poor in developing countries? Their work opportunities are so limited that they cannot work their way out of their situation. They are underemployed or totally unemployed. When they do find occasional works, their productivity is extremely low. Some of them have land but often too little land. Many have no land and no prospect of ever getting any. There is no hope for them in the rural areas and so, they drift into the big cities. But there is no work for them in the big cities either-and of course no housing. All the same, they flock into cities because their chances of finding some work appear to be greater there than in the village, where they are nil. Rural unemployment then produces mass migration into cities, rural unemployment becomes urban unemployment.

  The problem can be stated quite simply: what can be done to promote economic growth outside the big cities, in the small towns and villages which still contain 80 to 90% of the total population? The primary need is workplace, literally millions of workplaces.