Youth Transitions in a Post-Pandemic World: Challenges and Opportunities for Youth and Young Adults in the Sphere of Work (2)

An array of policy studies consistently confirms that youth and young adults have been the groups more severely affected in terms of employment by the COVID-19 crisis (ILO, 2021; OECD, 2022). These analyses resonate with studies of previous financial and social crises, in which youth employment have been found to be more sensitive and vulnerable than adult employment to economic downturns (DPS, 2016; ILO, 2019). Contemporary studies purport that while there are regional differences the post-pandemic recovery is showing that youth and young adults are struggling to access work. Less information, however, is available to understand: (a) the nuances of each national and regional labour market, in which not only unemployment but also underemployment, lack of decent work, and wage suppression play a significant role to generate precarity in youth transitions; and (b) the impact of the intersection of youth transitions and employment with class, gender, ethnicity, and other significant social dimensions.

This section welcomes quantitative and qualitative studies developed from a youth transition perspective, from the Global North and Global South, that examine the challenges faced by youth and young adults in the sphere of work in a post-pandemic scenario. Studies that intersect youth transitions and work with social class, gender, ethnicity, race and other social dimensions are particularly welcomed. We are also interested in theoretical, empirical and policy studies that unpack youth employment in a post-pandemic world by analysing underemployment, lack of decent work, the gig economy and other labour issues and how they impact youth transitions.