Furlong AndyGoodwin JohnHadfield Sarah - Young people in the labour market: past, present, future

This pathbreaking book provides a way out of the conceptual and policy cul-de-sac on precarious work for young people, that has dominated research and policy formation. Driven by the question how did precarious work come to be the new normal for young people?, the authors trace changing working conditions in the UK, Denmark and Germany from the mid-1970s. This long view exposes the suffering inflicted on young people by successive government policies and sets a new research and policy framework within which young peoples lives can be built.

Johanna Wyn , Director of the Youth Research Centre, Australia

Some of these authors have been holding the flame for youth studies for the last thirty years. Here, in a new must-read book analysing changes over that time, they show how vulnerable youth should no longer be regarded as a generation lost to the labour market. Instead, they are now a liminal generation in the labour market, caught betwixt and between by precarious employment.

Chris Warhurst , Professor and Director of the Warwick Institute for Employment Research, Warwick University, UK

An ambitious contribution that will shape how we understand the worlds of work of young people. From YOPs and YTSs in the 1980s to zero-hours contracts in the contemporary post-great recession UK marked by youth unemployment, underemployment and economic instability, Furlong et al. unpack the alternatives to long-term full-time employment that have been available to young people. Their empirically-grounded analysis of change, and continuities, in the labour market offers a critical engagement with the influential notion of precariat. They develop instead a new model, with three zones of (in)security, to provide a more nuanced theoretical approach to the diverse working lives of young people.

Tracey Warren , Professor of Sociology, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, UK

Young People in the Labour Market

Levels of suffering among young people have always been much higher than governments suggest. Indeed, policies aimed at young workers have often been framed in ways that help secure conformity to a new employment landscape in which traditional securities have been progressively removed. Increasingly punitive welfare regimes have resulted in new hardships, especially among young women and those living in depressed labour markets.

Framed by the ideas of Norbert Elias, Young People in the Labour Market challenges the idea that changing economic landscapes have given birth to a Precariat and argues that labour insecurity is more deep-rooted and complex than others have suggested. Focusing on young people and the ways in which their working lives have changed between the 1980s recession and the Great Recession of 2008/2009 and its immediate aftermath, the book begins by drawing attention to trends already emerging in the preceding two decades.

Drawing on data originally collected during the 1980s recession and comparing it to contemporary data drawn from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, the book explores the ways in which young people have adjusted to the changes, arguing that life satisfaction and optimism are linked to labour market conditions.

A timely volume, this book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers who are interested in fields such as Sociology, Social Policy, Management and Youth Studies.

Andy Furlong was Professor of Social Inclusion and Education and Dean for Research in the College of Social Science at the University of Glasgow, as well as Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne and Conjoint Professor at the University of Newcastle, Australia.

John Goodwin is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Leicester.

Henrietta OConnor is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Leicester.

Sarah Hadfield is a Researcher at the Institute of Mental Health, Nottingham. She worked as a Researcher at the University of Leicester when this book was formulated.

Stuart Hall is a Senior Researcher in the Robert Owen Centre for Educational Change at the University of Glasgow.

Kevin Lowden is a Senior Researcher in the Robert Owen Centre for Educational Change at the University of Glasgow.

Rka Plugor works as a Researcher at the University of Leicester.

Youth, Young Adulthood and Society

Series editor: Andy Furlong, University of Glasgow, UK

The Youth, Young Adulthood and Society series brings together social scientists from many disciplines to present research monographs and collections, seeking to further research into youth in our changing societies around the world today. The books in this series advance the field of youth studies by presenting original, exciting research, with strongly theoretically- and empirically-grounded analysis.

Published:

The Subcultural Imagination

Theory, Research and Reflexivity in Contemporary Youth Cultures

Edited by Shane Blackman and Michelle Kempson

Muslim Youth in the Diaspora

Challenging Extremism through Popular Culture

Pam Nilan

Young People in the Labour Market

Past, Present, Future

Andy Furlong, John Goodwin, Henrietta OConnor, Sarah Hadfield, Stuart Hall, Kevin Lowden and Rka Plugor

Forthcoming:

Youth, Class and Culture

Steven Threadgold

Spaces of Youth

Identities, Inequalities and Social Change

David Farrugia

Rethinking Young Peoples Marginalisation

Beyond Neo-Liberal Futures?

Perri Campbell, Lyn Harrison, Chris Hickey and Peter Kelly

Young People in the Labour Market

Past, Present, Future

Andy Furlong, John Goodwin, Henrietta OConnor, Sarah Hadfield, Stuart Hall, Kevin Lowden and Rka Plugor

First published 2018

by Routledge

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2018 Andy Furlong, John Goodwin, Henrietta OConnor, Sarah Hadfield, Stuart Hall, Kevin Lowden and Rka Plugor

The right of Andy Furlong, John Goodwin, Henrietta OConnor, Sarah Hadfield, Stuart Hall, Kevin Lowden and Rka Plugor to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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ISBN: 978-1-138-79806-9 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-75675-2 (ebk)

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Contents

we have seen that some of the problems faced by young people in modern Britain stem from an attempt to negotiate difficulties on an individual level. Blind to the existence of powerful chains of interdependency, young people frequently attempt to resolve collective problems through individual action and hold themselves responsible for their inevitable failure.