Young adulthood in uncertain times: The association between sense of personal control and employment, education, personal relationships and health

Chesters, Jenny; Smith, Jonathan; Cuervo, Hernán; Laughland-Booÿ, Jacqueline; Wyn, Johanna; Skrbiš, Zlatko; Woodman, Dan

doi:10.1177/1440783318800767

Cited by 25 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…This gender imbalance was due predominantly to the fact that the wider panel study that the participants were recruited from did not top up its sample over time, meaning that it was subject to uneven patterns of attrition. By 2018 – 13 years after the participants were recruited into the study – the wider sample was comprised of approximately two-thirds women, reflecting a pattern of attrition typical in longitudinal research (Chesters et al, 2019). For this reason, the pool of potential participants for the present study over-represented female participants.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Home Renovation as a Material Future-Making Practice

Cook

2020

Sociology

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This article considers whether home renovation can be understood as a material future-making practice. By drawing together studies of memory and domestic spaces and material futures it considers how each field can be expanded by focusing on the specific ways in which domestic futures are anticipated and formed. Data from a 2018 interview and photovoice-based study of Australian young adults’ pathways into and experiences of homeownership are presented in order to demonstrate how the participants’ depictions, understandings and experiences of renovation were intertwined with anticipatory practices and imaginings. The findings are used to demonstrate that the participants’ generation of material futures was both purposive and relationally based, challenging existing depictions of material futures as incidentally and individually formed. The article ultimately advocates for research on private, domestic futures as a key, and yet underexplored means of contending with the ‘wicked problems’ that occupy sociological research on futures.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Home Renovation as a Material Future-Making Practice

Cook

2020

Sociology

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“…They highlight how values of self-discovery and personal autonomy, which can be cynically framed as narcissistic or self-centred, can also be understood as a response to a social context where young people have been told they must 'make it on their own' (Woodman & Wyn, 2015). They explain that the increasing complexities and uncertainties of work, education, family and relationships mean young people think of their lives as a multidimensional project that requires high levels of self-management and self-focus (Chesters et al, 2019;Woodman & Wyn, 2011).…”

Section: The Sociology Of Generationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond millennials v baby boomers: Using kindness to assess generationalism across four age cohorts in Australia

Hookway

Woodman

2021

The Sociological Review

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Today’s young people (youth and young adults) are routinely understood in generational terms, constructed as narcissistic and selfish in comparison with their predecessors. Despite announcements of a weakening commitment to values of kindness and generosity, there is little empirical research that examines these trends. The Australian Survey of Social Attitudes shows that young people are more likely to be kind but are less likely to think most Australians are kind. This article investigates this tension using focus groups with Australians of different ages (corresponding to major generational groupings) and drawing on the sociology of generations. To differentiate between generation, period and age/life-cycle effects requires longitudinal methods. However, these qualitative data suggest that a ‘generationalist’ discourse of young people as narcissistic is powerful in Australia and that young people are both internalising and challenging this framing. They appear to be responding to common experiences of growing up with the social and economic uncertainties of an ‘until-further-notice’ world and express strong support for values of kindness and openness to difference.

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“…We focus on labor market outcomes since economic wellbeing in Australia, as in many other Western liberal countries, is determined in large part by labor market participation, and particularly fulltime, continuous employment in the labor market. Precarious employment is a concern across many advanced industrialized countries and young adults face particularly high levels of employment uncertainty (Chesters et al 2018;Kalleberg 2018). Understanding employment stability over a sustained period of time may be more advantageous than capturing employment status at one point in time, as it is likely to be a better indicator of income stability and also captures whether individuals may be moving in and out of the labor force, and in and out of employment.…”

Section: Young Motherhood Education and Labor Market Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transformative Event, Disruption or Cumulative Disadvantage? Labor Market and Education Trajectories of Young Mothers in Australia

2020

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Young motherhood in generally viewed as a risky event, adding complexity and hardship to the life of both the young woman and her child. Previous research has found that young mothers fall behind on both educational-and income measures later in life. At the same time, qualitative research reports stories of motherhood as a transformative experience, where the birth of a child provides motivation for a fresh start, moving young women away from previously unstable paths. While these two scenarios might appear contradictory, it may be that outcomes vary for different groups of women depending on the path they were already on before becoming a parent. We investigate the effects of young parenthood on the following years of labour market and educational participation, using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. We use a longitudinal sequence based approach, taking into account the stability of the educational and work pathways of young mothers by looking at how they transition in and out of employment on a week by week basis, in a measure of 'precarity'. By utilising this detailed information on the labour market and educational pathways before the birth of their first child, we can compare young mothers to peers who were on a very similar path, but did not become parents. This way, we come closer to the answer of how the life of young mothers diverges from what would otherwise be expected, were they to not have a child. Our results suggest that young motherhood has a negative impact for young women who were initially on a path that was not associated with a lot of precarity, such as women stably in education. This supports the idea of young motherhood as a cumulative disadvantage. However, this was not true for women on the most precarious paths. For them, becoming a mother did not impact their continuing labour market trajectory negatively, but neither did it lead to any improvements in comparison to women on similar paths who did not become a parent. We can conclude that we do not see the narratives of transformative power translated in to reality for this group. This leaves us with the question, how can we harness the transformative energy expressed by disadvantaged young mothers in qualitative research, and move past the point where young women are 'not that much worse off than expected' to 'better than expected', after becoming a parent? These insights are useful for decreasing stigma towards young parents, and blaming all misfortune on 'bad choices'. Indeed, stigma has been quoted as a significant barrier for young mothers, leading them to avoid interacting with supportive services, the very behaviour that could help young mothers utilise their transformative energy.

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Young adulthood in uncertain times: The association between sense of personal control and employment, education, personal relationships and health

Cited by 25 publications

References 49 publications

Understanding Home Renovation as a Material Future-Making Practice

Understanding Home Renovation as a Material Future-Making Practice

Beyond millennials v baby boomers: Using kindness to assess generationalism across four age cohorts in Australia

Transformative Event, Disruption or Cumulative Disadvantage? Labor Market and Education Trajectories of Young Mothers in Australia

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