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1 Understanding youth transitions in difficult times
Sarah Irwin and Ann Nilsen
Introduction
This book explores continuities and changes in youth and the transition to adulthood in diverse European country contexts. It explores recent developments in light of the global financial crisis of 2008 and the subsequent recession, social crises and austerity policies and situates their relevancies with reference to the long-term restructuring of youth and young adulthood. We bring together authors from across various sociological sub-disciplines specialising in youth, family and kinship, class and inequality and life course studies. They analyse developments across six European nations: Norway, the UK, Germany, Portugal, Italy and Greece. Each chapter investigates country-specific institutional, cultural and economic processes reshaping the life course phases of youth and early adulthood and how transitions are experienced, negotiated and authored by young people and their families. In most country case studies we offer new analyses of qualitative data. The contributors explore generational dynamics as an important analytic lens on youth and transitions, interrogating continuities and changes across generations as well as the interdependencies that bind familial generations. Most also focus on social class as a key dimension of their analyses of young people’s pathways and transitions. Whilst the analyses derive from distinct projects they are complementary and sit in dialogue with one another. In this introductory chapter, we trace some general developments through the latter part of the twentieth century, identify and explore some recent changes in the framing of young people’s pathways and transitions with reference to our country case study contexts, and discuss the conceptual value of the transitions approach and of a contextualist life course approach.
Notions of progress have underlain ideas about historical development in the Western world for hundreds of years (Kumar 1978). These ideas inspired the belief that conditions would improve from one generation to the next. The three decades of economic growth after World War II and the establishment of welfare states and poverty reduction along with expansion in education and employment for all were understood to be the new standard for development that fitted into the notion of progress (Hobsbawm 1994). In northern and western Europe post-war growth, investment, full employment, welfare state development and growing prosperity (particularly relative to the hardships of previous decades) underlay the long boom described by Hobsbawm. Extremely diverse sets of welfare arrangements and linked rights, responsibilities and gendered divisions of labour were built across these European nations in the post-war decades. Full employment meant that young people’s pathways to independent living were strongly underpinned by access to jobs, improving relative earnings and the resources deemed necessary for family formation. This period was also ‘the age of the housewife’ (Oakley 1974; Wærness 1978) and the male breadwinner model was the standard in most families. The transition to adulthood was strongly gendered and influenced by social class. Young working-class men were expected to get a job and earn a living as soon as compulsory schooling was over. A long period spent in university education was a privilege for the few. The post-war decades of inclusive growth saw increases in absolute if not relative upward social mobility (Breen 2004; Goldthorpe and Mills 2008). Through the post-war era family background remained a strong indicator of young people’s life chances in education and future employment. Therefore, although the era is often described as one of inclusive growth it was marked by strongly classed pathways from families of origin to destination. Nevertheless, the institutional structures of welfare, education and labour market regulation, and full (male) employment buttressed relatively standardised transitions across northern Europe.
From 1973 the era of inclusive and seemingly continuous growth faltered and gave way to recessions and rising unemployment across Europe (Hobsbawm 1994; Blanchard 2006). Anticipated by the policies of the Thatcher Conservative government in the UK, the 1980s saw a broader move away from the Keynesian policy strategies of the post-war decades and a new ascendancy of market-oriented policies. This period also saw an intensification of a process of globalisation with its deepening international economic interdependencies. Buchholz and colleagues, for example, identify interrelated social trends which engender greater connectedness across nations, including a growing internationalisation of markets and linked growth in economic competition across countries, a tendency to internal deregulation and reliance on market mechanisms in the provision of goods and services, and a linked increase in interdependence rendering nations more vulnerable to common crises (Buchholz et al 2009). Within nations these developments have heightened risks and precarity for those in vulnerable positions. Indeed, restructuring has itself altered the distribution of vulnerability across and within different population groups and life course stages.
Another important trend across European nations is the marked expansion of education. The number of years in compulsory schooling has increased and whilst in 2016 it was on average nine years (European Commission 2015), there has been growing concern over young people who do not complete 12 years of schooling, the so-called ‘drop-outs’ (Vogt 2017). Early school leaving is defined by the European Commission as completing school at the point of lower secondary education (typically at 16 years old). From 2002 to 2016 early school leaving rates continued to decline across the EU and fell from 17% to 11% (Eurostat 2017). Across Europe, participation in tertiary education has increased across the same time period from 24% to 39% (Eurostat 2017). This is a remarkable social change across a short historical period, and leads to interesting patterns of contrast in levels of education across population cohorts. For example, Germany manifests extensive similarities across generations in their levels of educational attainment. In stark contrast, Portugal manifests a very large generational gap in levels of formal education due to the low base of secondary education amongst currently retiring cohorts and very significant recent increases in educational participation amongst successor cohorts (Allmendinger and von den Driesch 2014). The marked increase in educational participation across many nations also raises important questions relating to the effectiveness of skills strategies and the fit between labour supply and demand. Some commentators highlight risks of credential inflation, widely seen to engender increased difficulties for more highly educated young people (eg Brown et al 2010). Systemic pressures also mean that those with few educational qualifications are increasingly marginalised and are less likely to overcome a difficult labour market start than in the past (eg George et al 2015).
In seeking to shed light on the macro-level framing of transition and country-specific diversity, many writers define and draw on typologies of regime types relating to welfare, education and labour market arrangements, and school to work transition patterns (eg Esping Andersen 1990; Walther 2006; Buchholz et al 2009; Buchmann and Kriesi 2011; Eurofound 2014). Such typologies form useful organisational and framing devices for social analysis. They foreground some of the ways in which contrasting institutional and cultural contexts profoundly shape the experiences and opportunities confronting young people and their lifetime implications. In their analyses of restructuring life course processes and the position of young people, Buchholz and colleagues (2009) very effectively show how diverse country-specific institutional structures mediate wider trends and translate them very differently at national, meso and individual levels. Although national contexts frame life course processes and social inequalities very differently, the authors argue that young adults are ‘the losers of the globalization process’ (p.67). Recent cohorts of young adults have been disproportionately undermined due to their life course stage and relatively vulnerable position in the labour market in an era of significant economic and social changes; times which differ markedly from those experienced by their parents and grandparents.
In the opening decade of the twenty-first century, all European countries were affected by the global financial crisis in 2008. Whilst public funds in many countries were spent on bailing out the banking sector after the crash, economic recession was used to justify spending cuts and policies of austerity (Stiglitz 2012). This is evident in some countries represented in this book: the UK, Portugal, Italy and Greece. The consequences of these policies have been dire on many fronts in these societies. Where austerity policies have been vigorously pursued and welfare and public services subject to retrenchment (Stiglitz 2012), intergenerational support for the transition to adulthood from family, friends and the wider community has gained new relevance, including within Mediterranean countries which already had a strong tradition of family support. Countries manifest significant diversity in how they provide support for early labour market transitions (O’Reilly et al 2015) and in the intergenerational inheritances, support and commitment which influence young adults’ experience (Allmendinger and von den Driesch 2014). Southern European nations have seen significant outward migration as a response to shrinking labour market opportunities. Throughout this book the diversity and variety of experiences, perceptions and practices are contextualised and demonstrated. Within the chapters our contributors situate recession and related developments alongside analyses of longer-run trends in the shaping of youth and early adulthood as life course stages.
Whilst the era from the 1970s/80s onwards has a longer duration now than the so-called post-war era of inclusive growth (eg Taylor-Gooby 2013) that preceded it, it nevertheless provides a common counterpoint in descriptions of current arrangements. For example, many commentators contrast the experience of youth and young adulthood today with that which was obtained in the post-war decades until the 1970s. They particularly highlight that youth and the transition to adulthood has become less linear, more protracted and more precarious (eg Buchholz et al 2009; Heinz et al 2009; Buchmann and Kriesi 2011; Antonucci et al 2014; Raffe 2014). Billari and Liefbroer (2010) describe the emergence of ‘a new European pattern of transition to adulthood’ (p.73), characterised as late, protracted and complex in contrast to the early, contracted and simple transitions which characterised the post-war period. These new characteristics and how they manifest across country contexts are well illuminated through the chapters. We turn now to illustrating some continuities and changes in youth and early adulthood across our country contexts.
Youth transitions in changing social and economic contexts
In this section we highlight some trends in the youth labour market, familial transitions and relationships across generations and we flag some key themes to be explored through the book. Positioned at the margins of the labour market, young people have been especially vulnerable to unemployment with low recruitment and exposure to last in, first out, policies in economic recession. They have also been undermined by the trend for employers to devolve risks to their employees, particularly through the use of casual and temporary labour (cf Bukodi et al 2008). Across Europe, unemployment rates vary significantly. In 2013 the EU-28 unemployment rate of young people aged 15–24 was 23%, reaching 40% in Italy and 58% in Greece (O’Reilly et al 2015). EU youth unemployment rates have since improved slightly to 2017 and stand at 19% (European Commission 2017). Such rates compare unemployed and employed youth, whilst the unemployment ratio measures unemployment as a proportion of the cohort as a whole. On this measure the 2013 EU average stood at 10%, varying from 4% and 5% in Germany and Norway to 13% in Portugal and 17% in Greece (O’Reilly et al 2015).
The EU employment rate of 15–24 year olds declined from 37% in 2008 to 33% in 2012 (Eurofound 2014), and then manifested a slight rise to 34% in 2016 (European Commission 2017). Employment rates vary significantly across northern and southern European nations. For example, in 2016 employment rates amongst young men aged 25 to 29 remained fairly constant at above 80% in the UK and Germany. In contrast, equivalent employment rates fell from 88% to 73% in Portugal and from 82% to 63% in Greece between 2000 and 2016 (Eurostat, Data Explorer). These are important reasons for the emigration discussed in the Portuguese and Greek chapters in the current volume.
National labour markets vary greatly in the kinds of employment available to young people and the extent to which early jobs comprise ‘cul-de-sac’ (dead-end) jobs or routes to labour market integration and a decent career (cf Bukodi et al 2008). There is a trend towards a polarisation of jobs with increased relative shares of high and low-skill jobs across many countries and a shrinking of the share of middle-skill jobs over recent decades (OECD 2017). It is widely observed that the youth labour market has become much more precarious than in the past. Across Europe, whilst 10% of the workforce aged 25–64 were on temporary contracts, this was the case for 42% of those aged under 25 (Eurofound 2014). Germany was relatively insulated from the consequences of economic recession (see Burda and Hunt 2011). Indeed, unemployment rates there fell between 2008 and 2011 (OECD 2011). In their study of the life course in Germany, Buchholz and Kolb (2011) highlight the particular vulnerability of young people (and women generally) due to a trend towards flexible employment practices, more widely found since the 1980s. With over 25% of young people under 30 on fixed-term contracts in Germany, this exemplifies the widespread vulnerability of those at the start of their careers (Buchholz and Kolb 2011). Nevertheless, Germany still manages an economy which integrates its young workers relatively successfully through its training and education systems (Eurofound 2014). This stands in contrast to several other country examples explored in this book. Growing labour market difficulties for young adults are widely seen to compromise pathways to autonomy and social independence, and to undermine psychological and subjective wellbeing (Antonucci et al 2014). Our chapters highlight the question of young people’s experiences and orientations across diverse national, regional and class-related contexts.
European nations may be experiencing a slow return to economic and employment growth from 2013/14 onwards, yet low and middle earnings remain static, and evidence points to inequalities becoming more marked (OECD 2017). Several researchers suggest that family background has maintained its grip on young people’s life chances (Antonucci et al 2014; Biggart et al 2015; O’Reilly et al 2015). Allmendinger and von den Driesch point to a deepening divide between the haves and have-nots and argue that ‘…through inheritance, the opportunities and risks accumulate dramatically on both sides’ (2014, p.99; see also O’Reilly et al 2015). The prospects of those with low qualifications is a particular concern. Many have very little chance of employment beyond short-term or zero-hour contracts at the low-pay end of the labour market. Across Europe, amongst 25 to 39 year olds with no more than lower secondary education, employment rates remained steady from 2000 to 2008 but then declined markedly, from 66% in 2007 to 56% in 2013 (European Commission 2017, p.72), suggesting particular difficulties for the least qualified. Young people’s early experiences of the labour market are crucial components in their future employment trajectories and wider wellbeing, for example through the scarring effects of early unemployment (O’Reilly et al 2015). Thus, although there may be a slow resumption of economic growth there are extensive concerns that this will be exclusionary and further marginalise disadvantaged youth. Conditions for young people with little or no formal education beyond compulsory schooling are remarkably similar across national contexts, signifying the importance of supranational trends in skills demands related to processes of both globalisation and national policies that we have pointed to and which will be further elaborated in individual chapters
There are gender differences across countries in employment participation, with the highest rates amongst women in the Nordic countries and the lowest in southern Europe (European Commission 2017, p.32). The highest female participation rates are amongst older women, especially those with higher education and seniority in workplaces. The gender employment and pay gap continues and remains an important issue across EU nations although now, notably, women are more highly qualified than men across the EU (European Commission 2017). Despite their higher qualifications on average y...
