| Abstract: |
Young people excluded from labour market participation or trapped in precarious employment have come to represent a key policy concern in European countries. The vulnerable position of young people in the labour market threatens the sustainability of the European social model and its dual objectives of competitiveness and social cohesion. While the current economic crisis is exacerbating these risks across Europe, there is the potential for greater differentiation to emerge in the extent to which young people experience these risks in different countries as a result of different labour market characteristics, familial norms and welfare policies. Drawing on 120 interviews with young people in 10 European countries (carried out for the 7th FP WILCO project), this chapter aims to provide a comparative analysis of young peoples' experiences of precariousness and unemployment. The chapter analyses young Europeans' experiences of precariousness, identifying five different 'profiles' of precariousness on the basis of age, educational experience, work experience and unemployment/inactivity spells, and the presence and quality of a professional goal or project. The analysis focuses on the ambiguous character of precariousness, which can represent both opportunities and constraints for different or even for the same people, but it is most likely to become a trap for the weakest profiles. The chapter also provides an analysis of the 'resource packages' that young people rely on, based on combinations of market exchange (private training or employment services), redistribution (public welfare), or reciprocity (primary and secondary networks, third sector programmes), and the extent to which these underpin young peoples' agency. The way in which different welfare contexts contribute to the configuration of risks faced by young people with precarious attachment to the workforce, and of the resources upon which they can draw, is also discussed. |
guest ::
