Third ISA Forum of Sociology (July 10-14, 2016)

390

Uncertainty and Precarity in Youth Employment: Public Policies, Institutional Mediations and Subjective Strategies. Part I

RC34 Sociology of Youth (host committee)

Language: Spanish and English

Young people around the world are bearing the costs of the global economic crises. Youth are disproportionally affected by un- and underemployment. Transitions from training and education to employment have become more fragmented, and youth are caught in temporary jobs and training with few career opportunities. At the same time, those transitions have become more diversified and individualized. Young people have increasingly become the producers of, and responsible for, their own futures. 
Under these circumstances, a sense of uncertainty impregnates their lives. We need empirically grounded analyses of the effects of uncertainty, work precarity and unemployment for young people globally. We also need intersectional analysis that is sensitive to how gender, ethnicity, migration status and disability configure in youth unemployment and precarity. Several questions arise from these developments including, but no limited to the following:

• What are the short- and long-term consequences of unemployment and work precarity for young people? Which is the impact of labour uncertainty on their everyday life?
• Which is the relationship between individualization and diversification in youth labour trajectories, on the one hand, and inequality, on the other hand?
• How are structural conditions and conjunctural circumstances at the labour market subjectively processed by young people? Which elements do young people take into account in their decisions regarding employment? Which strategies and creative alternatives do young people develop?
• Even in an era of deinstitutionalization, how institutions mediate the youth integration in the labour market? Which effects on youth career paths are observed? How are public policies involved in these processes? How effective are the current policy measures, and can we think of alternatives?

Posters: