Trajectories from youth to adulthood: choice and structure for young people before and during recession

Abstract

This paper is concerned with what the economic recession and rising youth unemployment might mean for young people's trajectories into adulthood. It is based on a qualitative longitudinal study that has been tracking young people's lateral relationships over the past four years or more. A series of case studies are used, drawing on Brannen and colleagues' four-fold transitions typology which highlights the structural forces underpinning the choices young people are able to make. The paper argues that young people enter a period of economic recession with prior resources and particular trajectories already in play in their lives. Thus, for the young people in this study, rather than recession bringing about a changed or fractured pathway into adulthood, it is providing a certain set of conditions for embedding particular, pre-existing trajectories.

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ORCID for Rosalind Edwards: orcid.org/0000-0002-3512-9029

ORCID for Susie Weller: orcid.org/0000-0002-6839-876X

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