The impact of pandemic-related loss of work on young adults’ plans

ABSTRACT

This article presents the findings of an interview and digital methods-based study of young Australian hospitality workers who lost work in the wake of the pandemic. In so doing it focuses on the relationship between one’s present-day material conditions and their capacity to form plans for the future, and the role of planning in young people’s future thinking. The article argues that the impact of the pandemic on the participants’ plans can be best understood not through analysis of their orientations to planning, but through consideration of the degree to which their present-day circumstances brought them further away from the desired futures that they had been planning. Indeed, some of the participants who found themselves in states of deprivation identified that their plans remained unchanged, while others who were little affected in an immediate, material sense experienced it as a crisis or as a catalyst for re-evaluation. By identifying the relationship between present-day conditions and future plans for our participants, we ultimately contend that understanding planning as a form of practice through which one’s present is connected to their desired future allows for insight into how young people prioritise and address goals in various spheres of life.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• futures
• planning
• unemployment
• young adulthood

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a University of Newcastle Faculty of Education and Arts staff grant.