What Comes after the Political Economy of Youth? Is It the Sociology of Youth?

This presentation engages in debates about the political economy of youth. It aims to combine a focus on different aspects of young lives in the context of social continuity and change and attention to ‘linked lives’ to show limitations with recent calls for a strengthened political economy of youth approach. Many intergenerational supports from parents to children once associated with teenage years now characterise youth and young adulthood and parents in Australia (with the capacity) are increasingly financially supporting their children well into young adulthood. It is established these financial transfers are being used to support young adults’ housing transitions, particularly home ownership, but the effects of the ‘bank of mum and dad’ are potentially far wider, shaping education, career, and relationship transitions and the cultural engagements young people can undertake. Using mixed-methods data from a longitudinal study in Australia, the presentation shows that these intergenerational supports are being used to manage financial insecurity and a cost-of-living crisis in some cases, but in others parents are helping their children to pursue extended education and manage a period of insecure and poorly paid employment on the way to more secure and well-paid careers in areas such as medicine, academia, and journalism and to pursue so called ‘DIY’ careers. I use this analysis to argue that recent approaches to the political economy of youth do not have the tools to understand young lives and shifting inequalities sociologically, and instead a sociological approach that treats lives holistically and as embedded in relationships across and within generations can provide these tools.