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The Persistent Pandemic of Precariousness: Young People at Work

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A Young Generation Under Pressure?

Abstract

The emergence of a new underclass composed of young people usually described in the press as the “Precarious Generation” or the “Generation of 1,000 euros”1 (and earning even less in certain cases) is, currently, one of the most widely discussed issues in the international discourse about the future of work. The obvious reasons for such a development are related to the dramatic expansion of jobs, which are precarious in nature in recent decades, as well as to the multiple and decisive ways that such a development affects the social and political inclusion of the young people,2 as well as other vulnerable groups of the workforce, such as immigrants, women and other vulnerable groups. The contemporary context in Europe appears to be marked by an increase in economic inequalities and growing disparities in social participation and citizenship rights. In other words, current socio-economic forces have made work more insecure, unpredictable and risky.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The term, inspired by social movement activists, independent writers and radical political bloggers is currently used to describe the labour market situation of the young workers generations (18–30 years old), who have to make their own living and to organise their life under the restricted stream of low-paid and contingent jobs. Similar or associated terms used in the modern literature to describe the emergence of the new underclass include the following: contracto a vassoura, milleuristas, Generation P (acronym from the Precarious), the contrat première embauche (CPE) generation, and Generation Kangourou.

  2. 2.

    Age is a useful, but not sufficient indication to characterise the transition to adulthood. The focus of this paper is on the people age 16–30 years.

  3. 3.

    According to this philosophical approach of precariousness, such elements are distributed across the whole time and space of life and they form an existential condition that spreads beyond the boundaries of work (Neilson and Rossiter 2005). For example, Tsianos and Papadopoulos (2006) consider precarity (the state of precariousness) as a mean to exploit the continuum of everyday life and not simply the workforce. Precarity is a form of exploitation, which operates on the level of time and forms an embodied experience.

  4. 4.

    For example, Marshall described unemployment as inconstancy of employment. In general, the definitions of unemployment used before Keynes’ theory on employment (1936) usually implied a type of work or an employment pattern characterised by inconstancy, irregularity, variability and discontinuity. For further information, see the analysis of Winch (1972) and Dedousopoulos (2000).

  5. 5.

    See http://stats.oecd.org/WBOS/index.aspx.

  6. 6.

    The Euro-Barometer (http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/standard_en.htm) and the European Working Conditions Surveys (http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/ewco/surveys) have come to similar conclusions regarding the work insecurity of young people for several years.

  7. 7.

    Data about earning by age groups come from Structure of Earnings Survey (SES) ,which was carried out in 2002 and 2006 in all EU countries. Data are available in PPS (Purchasing Power Parities), a unit which equalizes the purchasing power of different countries for a given basket of goods. Using a PPP basis is arguably more useful when comparing differences in living standards on the whole between nations (European Commission 2006).

  8. 8.

    Young people cannot be considered as a powerful political group that can influence to a great or to a certain extent the decisions about labour market reforms. According to relevant publications by the European Commission (The White Paper “A New Impetus for European Youth”, COM 2001/ “Renewed Social Agenda-Opportunities, Access and Solidarity in twenty-first Century Europe”, COM 2008) it is argued that there is an urgent need to ensure that those for whom policies are designed are part of the policymaking process as subjects rather than objects of the planning process.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Dr. Mary Brown (Robert Gordon University), Maria Markaki (National Technical University of Athens) Dr. Ilias Livanos (University of Warwick) and Maria Koumenta (LSE) for their contribution in the collection of the data and their comments about the analysis followed.

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  1. Faculty of Business, Environment and Society, Coventry University, Coventry, UK

    Lefteris Kretsos

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  1. Lefteris Kretsos
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Correspondence to Lefteris Kretsos .

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  1. Generationen (SRzG), Stiftung für die Rechte zukünftiger, Ludwig-Erhard-Str. 16a, Oberursel, 61440, Germany

    Joerg Tremmel

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Kretsos, L. (2010). The Persistent Pandemic of Precariousness: Young People at Work. In: Tremmel, J. (eds) A Young Generation Under Pressure?. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03483-1_1

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