Post-crisis, post-Ford and post-gender? Youth identities in an era of austerity

Abstract

In this review I explore the connections between debates about the transformation of work in a service-dominated economy and those about classed and gendered identities. I suggest they might usefully be connected in analyses of disadvantage and exclusion among working-class young people. Youth involvement in protest and unrest in English cities, as well as rising rates of unemployment, raise questions about the connections between labour market exclusion and young men's and women's construction and performance of acceptable versions of gendered identities. Performative identities are crucial in gaining employment, especially in the forms of low-waged interactive employment open to young people with few skills or little educational capital.

Keywords:

• crisis
• transformation
• reproduction
• unemployment
• identities

Acknowledgements

The careful critical advice of two referees made this a far better paper. I should like to thank them for their helpful engagement with the argument.

Notes

1. See for example The Guardian, a daily newspaper on 28 January 2012 and The Observer, a quality Sunday newspaper, on 31 January 2012.