Comparing youth transitions in Europe: Joblessness, insecurity, institutions, and inequality

This introductory chapter outlines the key trends and debates concerning the rapid growth of youth unemployment and early-career labor market insecurity in Europe. It looks at new forms of segmentation and the distinction between “poorly integrated youth” and those “left behind” in relation to gender, ethnicity, and class inequalities. The chapter contextualizes youth labor in Europe, and it examines how European countries have performed in relation to integrating young people into work, as captured by the use of different indicators and typologies in comparative research on youth transition regimes. It points to how these types of analysis affect policy debates. Providing an overview of the contributions to this volume, it suggests that an inclusive analysis of both the sphere of social reproduction and economic production are required to improve our understanding of youth labor market transitions and insecurity since the Great Recession