Gendered youth transitions: Are patterns changing? A view from The Netherlands

Abstract

Changes in the social structuring of of the life‐phase ‘youth’ and high rates of youth unemployment during the eighties have opened discussion over posited shifts in young people's work orientations and a weakening of the gender‐specificity of youth transitions. Using data from The Netherlands, this paper argues that changes in educational participation, patterns of family life, and work orientations have certainly taken place, but that these cannot be straightforwardly interpreted in terms of individualisation processes and their consequences. Young people remain firmly attached to paid work as a central component of their identities and life plans, and this is increasingly so for young women. Nevertheless, youth transitions remain highly gendered in character, frames of meaning, and implications for the course of adult life.