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2 - Uncertainty and Disruption in the Transition to Adulthood During COVID-19
- Edited by Glenn W. Muschert, Kristen M. Budd, Miami University, David C. Lane, Illinois State University, Jason A. Smith
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- Book:
- Social Problems in the Age of COVID-19 Vol 2
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 23 March 2021
- Print publication:
- 21 October 2020, pp 15-26
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Summary
The Problem
The COVID-19 pandemic has jeopardized the successful transition to adulthood for many youth around the world. The present health and economic crisis has diminished youth's capacity to acquire key adult markers, including finishing school, the acquisition of stable employment, obtaining an independent residence, marriage, and parenthood. Due to significant and widespread disruptions stemming from the pandemic, youth have become increasingly vulnerable at a critical life stage. Inequalities in the transition to adulthood, already problematic before the pandemic, have deepened. However, the impacts of COVID-19 on youth are not uniform across countries; they depend largely on national institutional arrangements and social policy. This chapter addresses the implications of COVID-19 and its aftermath for educational, employment, and family-related transitions to adulthood.
The economic downturn and uncertainty induced by the pandemic have resulted in wide-ranging effects on postsecondary education and training, from the availability of public funding for these programs to their affordability. Unemployment and reductions in work hours have lessened families’ capacity to pay for their children's tuition and other educational costs. Moreover, in some countries, for the first time in the history of higher education, attendance may be a health risk that could discourage enrollment and completion. In this context, youth may lower their educational aspirations, have increasing difficulty obtaining postsecondary educational degrees, and/or drop out due to lack of resources. These problems could exacerbate preexisting racial and class inequalities in educational outcomes, leading to increasingly divergent socioeconomic opportunities both within and between countries.
Similarly, the COVID-19 pandemic has jeopardized young people's successful entry to, and establishment in, the workforce. Long-term structural changes and increased global competition have made work uncertain and unstable, especially for young adults entering the job market. The pandemic has worsened this problem and is likely to widen occupational and income inequalities. The lack of institutional bridges from school to work in some countries, such as the United States, China, and Brazil, makes job entry particularly challenging, even in good economic times. As labor markets tighten in such countries during this pandemic, youth have experienced mounting unemployment from which they will struggle to fully recover even when economic conditions improve.
3 - The Great Recession and Youth Labor Market Outcomes in International Perspective
- from Part II - The Changing Context of Youth Transitions
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- By Arnaldo Mont'alvao, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Institute for Social, Jeylan T. Mortimer, Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota, Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson, Professor of Sociology and Honors College Distinguished Professor at Washington State University
- Edited by Ingrid Schoon, University College London, John Bynner, University College London
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- Book:
- Young People's Development and the Great Recession
- Published online:
- 20 October 2017
- Print publication:
- 02 November 2017, pp 52-74
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Summary
Abstract
In this chapter, we consider the impacts of economic recession on youth employment and educational outcomes around the world. We seek to understand how national differences in institutional structures and culture shape youth responses to deteriorating economic circumstances. The work is divided into four sections. The first section describes how deteriorating economic circumstances affect youth: directly, through increases in youth unemployment and underemployment; and indirectly, through family economic stress and diminishing public services. The second examines how the social context affects youth responses to economic shocks, taking into account institutional and structural factors and cultural frames that enhance or circumscribe youth options. We show that strong bridges between the school system and the labor market can cushion the negative effects of the recession on employment prospects. The third section examines how economic downturns affect both the demand and the supply sides of the higher education system: increasing enrollments, elevating costs, and increasing the diversity of the student body and its distribution across institutions. The final section identifies fruitful questions for further comparative cross-national research on the effects of economic recession on youth transitions from school to work and youth's future labor market prospects.
Introduction
Before the onset of the Great Recession in 2008, youth labor market prospects were improving around the world. In the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) area, for example, youth unemployment fell from 16 percent to 14.4 percent between 1997 and 2007 (Scarpetta, Sonnet, and Manfredi 2010). In developing countries, industrial production and labor markets were performing impressively well (Didier, Hevia, and Schmukler 2011) and youth unemployment rates had reached their lowest level in decades. But the Great Recession broke this trend, imposing greater difficulties in both entering and remaining in the labor market. By 2009, youth unemployment had reached 18.8 percent, on average, in the OECD area, adding 4 million young people to the ranks of the unemployed. In countries like Ireland, France, and Hungary, youth unemployment went up beyond 25 percent, and in Spain it reached the staggering rate of 44 percent.
13 - Economic Recession and Youth Achievement Orientations
- from Part V - Future Orientations and Well-being
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- By Jeylan T. Mortimer, Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota, Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson, Professor of Sociology and Honors College Distinguished Professor at Washington State University, Arnaldo Mont'alvao, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Institute for Social and Political Studies (IESP)
- Edited by Ingrid Schoon, University College London, John Bynner, University College London
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- Book:
- Young People's Development and the Great Recession
- Published online:
- 20 October 2017
- Print publication:
- 02 November 2017, pp 321-347
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Summary
Abstract
This chapter examines the development of achievement orientations, and considers how key socialization processes may be affected in times of economic turbulence. We posit that economic recessions are detrimental for youth because of their potential to disrupt socialization to work in the family and in the workplace. We support this argument by drawing on findings from the three-generation Youth Development Study (YDS), which has followed a cohort of young people from adolescence to their mid-thirties, and has also surveyed their parents and their children. Agentic orientations are shown to yield pervasive occupational dividends; we trace their development across three generations. We also provide evidence that parental setbacks during the Great Recession impacted children's economic expectations and educational aspirations.
Introduction
Adolescence and young adulthood are critical formative periods for the development of psychological orientations, including aspirations, educational and occupational expectations and plans, and work values, all of which affect future educational and career trajectories. Economic recessions have the potential to influence, and to disrupt, the social contexts in which these agentic personal resources are formed – especially in the family and the workplace. Effects on families are particularly germane, as children observe their parents’ reactions to economic shocks (unemployment, wage loss) and uncertainty and form their own ideas about work life accordingly. Recessionary times influence adolescents and young adults directly as well, as they limit their opportunities for gainful work and the learning it provides.
In this chapter, we consider several interrelated questions to help us understand the relationships between economic recessions and the development of achievement oriented attitudes and behaviors. First, how have achievement orientations been conceptualized and how have recent societal changes and economic uncertainty affected their acquisition? Through what processes of socialization are achievement orientations developed? And finally, what is the role of parental hardship in the socialization of achievement orientations in their children?
To address these questions, we initially review key concepts surrounding achievement orientations and behavior, and describe the changing societal contexts that have arguably made their development more extended, as well as more uncertain and challenging. We present two models of socialization relevant to the development of achievement orientations: a social learning model, key to socialization in the family, and a learning-generalization model, featuring adaptation in the work setting.