Generation Z In the Workplace: Between Educational Aspirations, the Uncertainty of Adulthood and Developmental Challenges

This session examines Generation Z’s entry into the labor market as a critical sociological site where educational aspirations, prolonged uncertainty, and developmental challenges intersect. Born into a world marked by digital acceleration, economic volatility, climate anxiety, and shifting meanings of adulthood, young people face increasingly complex transitions from education to work. Their expectations often combine strong aspirations for meaningful, flexible, and socially responsible employment with concerns about precarious contracts, rising living costs, credential inflation, and limited prospects for stable independence.

The session invites theoretical, empirical, and comparative contributions that explore how Generation Z navigates these tensions across diverse institutional, cultural, and economic contexts. Particular attention will be given to the relationship between educational pathways and labor market outcomes; the role of social class, gender, migration background, and regional inequality in shaping opportunities; and the ways in which young people construct adulthood, autonomy, and professional identity under conditions of uncertainty. We also welcome analyses of employers’ expectations, intergenerational relations at work, digital skills, mental health, and the impact of crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic on career planning and life-course decisions.

By bringing together research on youth, work, education, and transition to adulthood, the session aims to deepen sociological understanding of Generation Z not as a homogeneous cohort, but as a generation internally differentiated by resources, constraints, and aspirations within increasingly fragmented, competitive, and unequal societies. It seeks to identify both structural barriers and emerging forms of agency through which young people imagine and pursue futures in changing labor markets globally.