Abstract
Understanding youth transitions is arguably one of the key tasks of youth studies. A crucial aspect of this task is examining young people’s changing pathways into the labour market. Work is central for young adults to achieve independence and access full adulthood. However, European youth literature has been criticized for an excessive focus on school-to-work transitions to the detriment of other aspects of young people’s lives (e.g., Shildrick and MacDonald, 2007). This criticism is at the heart of the book edited by Helena Helve and Karen Evans, who in the introduction state: ‘Wellbeing, leisure and personal relationships are often relegated to side issues to the main fame of education and employment; their influence on education and employment patterns and decisions all too often ignored’ (p. 17–18). Youth and Work Transitions in Changing Social Landscapes is a step towards a broader view of school-to-work transitions, one that considers both the prerequisites for a successful transition, and its impact on young people’s well-being and further development.
The book brings together contributions from sociology, psychology and education that build a multifaceted overview of youth transitions. The articles are structured in four main sections. Part II, ‘Perspectives on employment transitions and wellbeing changes during economic recession’ discusses the relationship between labour market transitions and young people’s well-being under the current economic conditions. The chapters in this section bring light into changes in youth transitions in Finland and the UK over the last decades. Part III, ‘Biographical negotiations from youth to adulthood’; engages directly with the agency–structure debate and advances the debate by examining the specific ways in which individual resources and structures intertwine to create particular transitional outcomes. Part IV, ‘New career aspirations, life chances and risks’ addresses well-being in relation the diverse spheres of young people lives: the neighbourhood, the school/university and the workplace. Well-being is here identified as both a resource for, and an outcome of, a successful transition. Finally, Part V, entitled ‘Wider international perspectives on youth, working life and wellbeing’, aims to extend the ‘Finnish-British dialogue’ (p. 30) of the previous chapters to a wider context. The chapters in this section describe school-to-work transitions in six radically different contexts Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan, Russia and India.
This volume makes, in my opinion, two main contributions to the literature in youth transitions. First, it promotes a wider understanding of school-to-work transitions by tracing the dynamic interaction between labour market transitions and other aspects of young people’s lives. For example, Salmela-Aro examines mental well-being in school-to-work transitions, McGrellis and Holland evidence the importance of parental support to succeed in the transition to adulthood, while Reynolds discusses how social capital at the neighbourhood level influence the labour market transitions of disadvantaged black youth. Together, they encourage a rethinking of the criteria by which transitions are judged as successful to include factors such as well-being and life satisfaction.
It is precisely this wider approach to the study of school-to-work transitions that allows the authors to add to the agency–structure debate, the second contribution of the book. The agency–structure debate—that is, the debate regarding the extent to which transitional outcomes are the result of individual choices or rather a reflection of the individual position in the social structure—has played a central part in youth studies. Indeed ‘the relevance of personal resources in relation to structural obstacles is one of the biggest points of contention in this area of research’ (p. 309). The authors take different perspectives, but can generally be placed in the middle ground. Rather than formulating generic claims about the need to consider both structure and agency in the study of youth transitions, they interrogate the mutual influences between structural limitations and personal resources in specific contexts.
The take home message for policy makers is that while changing structures remains fundamental, helping young people to build resources may be an effective strategy to increase resilience. But also that one size does not fit all. The international contributions portray a changing balance between agency and structure in different contexts. Helve (Finland) and Zubok (Russia) illustrate the capacity of young people to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances. Zubok shows how young Russians adjust their attitudes to education and work as a response to a rapidly changing labour market during the country’s transition towards a market economy. Helve, who explores the motivations and work values of young temporary workers in the leisure industry in Finland, finds that also there young people have adapted their short-term preferences and long-term expectations to the changing labour market conditions. These accounts contrast with Makino’s description of labour market transitions in Japan, where the existence of a highly structured transition system, largely dominated by schools and companies, means that opportunities for agency are severely restricted. The notion that agency and structure are context bound is further explored in the final chapter by James Côté, who proposes a typology for the discussion of agency and structure focused on resources. In doing so, he builds a helpful theoretical instrument to start thinking about youth transitions in changing conditions. However, questions such as how and why the role of personal resources changes over time and space remain open, and call for further research. Comparative studies, such as the chapter by Schoon and Schulenberg in this volume, seem particularly well-suited to attain that aim.
On the whole, the editors have succeeded in bringing together innovative research that firmly engages with the key debates in youth studies. This book can be recommended to anyone with an interest in current debates around youth transitions. It will also appeal to academics interested in the dynamics of agency and structure during the youth phase of the life cycle.