https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1999-9147
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ABSTRACT
This article examines the role of youth activation in reproducing classed and gendered youth transitions. A large body of research on transitions examines how structural conditions continue to pattern youth transitions in the context of detraditionalization and individualisation. What is often missing from these analyses, is the role of institutional actors and youth policies. Based on a multi-sited ethnographic research in employment services in Helsinki, Finland, this article explores the role of youth activation and welfare conditionality in NEET young people's transitions. Youth activation refers to a complex mix of employment services, prevention of social exclusion, active labour market policies and welfare conditionality. The article shows how the seemingly supportive practices provided by youth employment services channel young people to a limited number of occupational tracks at the lower end of the labour market in a gendered manner. This channelling is institutionalised in the services’ organisational structures and practices, and strengthened by welfare conditionality. The consequence is a powerful institutional pattern that structures and restricts youths’ transition paths.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 The project was conducted with PI, assistant professor Lena Näre, postdoctoral researcher Elina Paju and doctoral student Daria Krivonos.
2 The Finnish services dd not yet have a system whereby the service provider is paid only when the client gets work as in many other European countries. Performance targets included job offers sent and the rate of clients in activation measures.
3 In the Finnish Universities, lectures are technically public, so anyone interested can attend.
