Shaping worker-citizenship: young vocational education graduates’ labour market positionings within new adulthood

ABSTRACT Young vocational graduates face many expectations related to the norms of worker-citizenship when entering the labour market. Due to contemporary uncertainties and the new realities of adulthood, meeting these expectations may not be easy. These expectations might also conflict with young adults’ desires. This paper examines how vocational education graduates position themselves in the labour market and what kind of worker-citizenship they produce in their working-life stories. The study is based on 32 individual interviews with 18- to 25-year-old vocational graduates with different positions in the Finnish labour market. The findings support earlier research on the importance of assuming the position of worker-citizen for these graduates. In new adulthood, they aim but are also forced to shape their worker-citizenship when, for some, vocational qualification has not redeemed its promises. Based on empirical findings, the article argues that ideals maintained in vocational education may need to be shaped within the unpredictable realities of new adulthood.


Introduction
This article examines how young adults who have completed their vocational upper secondary education negotiate their positions in the contemporary labour market in Finland.It concentrates on vocational education, the development of which is based on the need to guarantee skilled workers to the growing industry and on a moral aspiration to provide young people skills that enhance their employability and promote their social inclusion (Billett 2014).Vocational education also reproduces these objectives: several studies claim that vocational qualification eases young adults' transition to the labour market because their occupation-specific skills enhance their attachment to working life especially at the beginning of their careers (Lavrijsen and Nicaise 2017;Müller 2005, 468-469;Vogtenhuber 2014).Finland has attempted to strengthen this connection with a reform in 2018 by increasing work-based learning and cooperation (Rintala and Nokelainen 2020).
Traditionally, vocational education has been developed as an education for young people oriented towards practical jobs (Billett 2014).In fact, it is practicality and rapid employment that specifically attract young people to vocational education (Tolonen and Aapola-Kari 2022).This article concentrates on vocational upper secondary education, which in the Finnish context refers to an educational track for which young people aged 16 proceed after completing a nine-year comprehensive school.In Finland, about 40% of this age group choose the vocational track instead of general upper secondary education (Official Statistics of Finland 2020).The length of the education is approximately three years, depending on individual study plans.After graduation, those with vocational qualifications can apply for higher education alongside those with a more general academic upper secondary education.They are, however, a minority in higher education (7% of students in university and 33% in universities of applied sciences) and their paths to it are often complicated (Haltia, Isopahkala-Bouret, and Jauhiainen 2021).
According to several studies, vocational education's drive to educate future workers is influenced by changes in the labour market and its demandsthat is, by the availability of work and the labour markets' needs for skilled workers (Buchs and Helbling 2016).Studies have noted, for example, that the benefits of occupational skills fade over time if graduates are not prepared to develop them or if they are not transferable to another field (Buchs and Helbling 2016, 12-13;Lavrijsen and Nicaise 2017;Vogtenhuber 2014).Thus, working-life changes (such as technologisation, digitalisation and globalisation) may have a greater impact on occupation-specific fields (such as technical fields) than on fields with more adaptability or higher demand in the local labour market (e.g.Buchs and Helbling 2016;Maczulskij and Karhunen 2017).For example, employment among Finnish vocational graduates declined by 8% during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020: 62% of the graduates were employed 1 one year after their graduation (Official Statistics of Finland 2022).The greatest decline occurred in the service sector, while the best employment prospects were in health and welfare.However, this article claims that understanding vocational graduates' lives in the contemporary labour market requires also qualitative examination.
This article is guided by the idea that, for the young vocational students, a secure employment is a promise and marker of adulthood (see Ågren 2021).After finishing their studies, they want to be employed in their occupational field and to start building independent lives as their peers do, i.e. pay their own bills, own a home, and get money to spend time with friends.However, according to the debate on 'new adulthood', in the contemporary world, the transitions to work and through it to adulthood are not as linear and predictable as these young adults learn to expect as part of their education (Dwyer and Wyn 2001;Wyn 2020).It is possible that not all young adults find a stable position and hence a basis on which to plan their lives further.This makes their choicemaking regarding their adult lives a more contingent and complex process than what it was for older generations (Woodman and Wyn 2015).Thus, it may be confusing for young adults to discover that their education does not meet the demands of working life and worker-citizenship, as a path to independence, is not realised as promised by vocational education (Cahill and Leccardi 2020;Cuervo and Wyn 2016;Kelly 2017;regarding worker-citizenship, see Isopahkala-Bouret, Lappalainen, and Lahelma 2014).
This article examines how worker-citizenship ideals shape upper secondary vocational education graduates' interpretations of their positions in the Finnish labour market.With the help of the conceptualisation of new adulthood, it aims to understand the new conditions under which young adults with vocational qualifications negotiate their workercitizenship.This article approaches these questions through qualitative interviews containing a longitudinal dimension.The data include 32 interviews with 21 young adults aged 18-25 who were interviewed between 2018 and 2020 (11 of which are followups).First, the article introduces the concept of worker-citizenship and discusses it in the contexts of vocational education and new adulthood.After that, it proceeds to the empirical findings.

Theoretical background
According to Sennett (2008), occupational skills have always played an important part in an individual's (especially that of a craftsman) identity and participation in society.Occupational competence guarantees their dignity and position in the community.Within the current conditions of worker-citizenship, this relationship between society and the individual (or the 'social contract' defining the rights, obligations and ethical characteristics of the desired citizenship; see Lewis and Flink 2004;Suikkanen and Viinamäki 1999), however, changes its character.As a theoretical preamble to the analysis presented later, two interrelated aspects of this change should be noted.The first deals with how the prevailing worker-citizenship ideal redefines what kinds of personal traits are required of young adults in the labour market.The second pertains to how these new demands affect post-graduation life chances, which are debated under the concept of 'new adulthood'.
First, in Dewey's (2003Dewey's ( , 2007, 250-251) , 250-251) vision, ideally, vocational education helps (not forces) young people to discover what they are 'fitted to do' in society.Vocational students adopt as part of their education how they should behave to be the 'the right person(s) for the job' and, in accordance with Sennett's (2008) Craftsmanship, learn in the best case to dedicate themselves to their occupation, to do it well and to become proud of it (Colley et al. 2003, 488;Leeman and Volman 2021).However, by emphasising the qualities of the worker-citizenship ideal, vocational education does not merely promote young adults' occupational inclusion in their fields (cf.Ågren, Pietilä, and Rättilä 2020).Vocational education's societal function, driven largely by the interests of the national economy, is also to promote young adults' social inclusion through employability (Billett 2014;Isopahkala-Bouret, Lappalainen, and Lahelma 2014;Lappalainen, Nylund and, and Rosvall 2019).At the same time, however, such inclusionary goals attached to worker-citizenship have been found to be vulnerable in the face of ongoing societal and economic changes (Suikkanen and Viinamäki 1999).Research has claimed, for example, that the priorly predictable working-life narratives have been replaced by uncertainty, that the relationship between employment and unemployment has become vaguer, and that traditional worker-citizenship has been challenged by the new risks of precarious work (Beck 1992, 140-142;Standing 2009).As Sennett (1998) points out, a major influence in the triumph of the worker-citizenship model has been 'the new capitalism', which has changed both the ways how the work is done and the personal characteristics that the labour market requires from the workers.According to him, while it used to be ideal for a person to delve into work and become proficient in it, contemporary consumption-based labour markets value the traits of competition, efficiency and flexibilityin other words, entrepreneurialism is a new personal responsibility (see Kelly 2013).Amid such changes, labour market risks have become individualised, and as traditions and permanence have transformed into insecurity, the workercitizens are now seen as responsible for their personal biography, as Beck (1992) has argued.
For the second, it can be argued that, due to these new requirements, attaining worker-citizenship has become less manageable for young adults compared to traditional ideals, which in effect also disrupts their paths to independent adulthood.As research has indicated, contemporary employment and education policies work to guide young adults towards 'active', entrepreneurial worker-citizenship to respond to the requirements of the labour market (Kelly 2017;McQuaid and Lindsay 2005;Nikunen 2017), while at the same time, their resources for implementing such an ideal of a 'proper' worker-citizen are not equally distributed (Skeggs 2004, 60-61).The theorists of new adulthood (see Dwyer and Wyn 2001, 87-96;Woodman and Wyn 2015, 49-50, 68) have claimed that young adults, regardless of their capacities and resources, are compelled to renegotiate their position in society when their life situations or labour market experiences collide with institutional expectations or the (false) promises of education.No stable adulthood exists anymore (referring to issues such as achieving a secure position in employment, house ownership, or safe ground for parenthood and a family) into which young adults can transition; instead, they must make their life choices in a world that is imminently uncertain (Dwyer & Wyn 2001, 87-96;also Woodman & Wyn 2015, 87-88;Wyn 2020).Subsequently, not everyone can achieve a secure position in the labour market, even if such a position is promised, especially for those in vocational education (e.g.Cuervo & Wyn 2016).
The article utilises these ideas from the debates on worker-citizenship and new adulthood to analyse the labour market positionings of Finnish vocational graduates as they themselves understand and narrate them.As to a short characterisation of the Finnish labour market, it is often considered to be more equal and stable than the more neoliberal and market-driven Anglo-American labour market, from which the debates on new adulthood and new capitalism mainly originate (see Sennett 1998, 53-55).According to research, the amount of insecure work in Finland has not increased over recent decades, and young adults' working-life paths stabilise as their work experience accumulates (Pyöriä and Ojala 2016, 363).Furthermore, the positive outcomes of vocational education regarding, for example, income do not appear to fade over time, and despite technological development vocational graduates' employment prospects do not differ from the graduates in general education (Silliman and Virtanen 2019).In this sense, the argument of labour market uncertainties within new adulthood does not seem to apply to the Finnish context, at least not directly.In general, some researchers have cautioned against exaggerating the increase in uncertainty, since it has also been part of previous generations' young adulthood (see Goodwin and O'Connor 2005).However, changes conceptualised as new adulthood are not only related to the availability of work, but also to the growing demands and pressures towards working life at a time where young adults are more responsible for their personal choices (to be congruent with society's expectations) and when their lives have become more difficult to control (Dwyer and Wyn 2001;Woodman and Wyn 2015).Thus, also the findings of Farrugia (2019aFarrugia ( , 2019b)), i.e. how in societies with new capitalism, young adults may learn to interpret their value and aspirations through their 'working selves', formulate an interesting comparative context for this article (cf.Ågren 2021).

Data and methods
The data consist of 32 individual interviews with 21 young adults aged 18-25 (some of whom were interviewed twice) who graduated from vocational upper secondary education.Of the interviews, 28 were collected by 'Ohjaamoista työelämään' research project led by Määttä (2018Määttä ( , 2019) ) from Finnish one-stop guidance centres (dataset 1).One-stop guidance centres were established in 2014 as multiagency service points for young people under 30.Approximately 70 centres in Finland currently integrate guidance, employment and social services under the same roof to help young adults with problems related to education and employment (see Määttä 2019).The project interviewed 17 vocational graduates in these centres in 2018, 11 of whom were interviewed again in 2019.A longitudinal perspective is included in the analysis when relevant.The data also contain four interviews with vocational graduates conducted by the author in the autumn of 2020 via Microsoft Teams (dataset 2 2 ).All the interviews took place from a half to six years after the interviewees had finished their vocational upper secondary education.In both sets of interviews, questions were asked about interviewees' work experiences, their attitudes towards working life and the labour market and their conceptions of the meaning of work for their lives.
The data included varied labour market experiences.Only a few of the interviewees had proceeded linearly to employment or further education.At the time of data collection, 16 interviewees were unemployed, four were working (permanent, temporary or zero-hour contract jobs), nine were studying and three were engaged in other activities, i.e. participating in workshops or vocational rehabilitation.The interviewees had experiences also with temporary or part-time employment, agency contract work, undeclared work, unpaid work trials, or had changed or planned to change their occupation after their graduation.Before vocational qualification, a few had originally started (or completed) general upper secondary education.Overall, the interviewees' experiences provide a multifaceted picture of the kinds of negotiations vocational graduates undertake regarding their worker-citizenship.
The article applies positioning theory as an analysis method to understand how the interviewees interpret their positions in the labour market and how they negotiate the related ideals.The assumption here is that the interviewees' perceptions of their rights and duties as worker-citizens are reflected in how they describe their beliefs and work experiences in the interviews (Harré 2012;Harré and Van Langenhove 2010).The analysis focuses on the meanings the interviewees attach to (the ideals of) worker-citizenship, i.e. how they (re)produce, question or reject them; how they explain their working-life choices in relation to those ideals and how their thoughts and choices appear in relation to their various work experiences (Harré 2012, 196;Harré and Van Langenhove 2010, 113-114).
As suggested in positioning theory, vocational graduates' work stories were read intensively by searching and coding passages in which they: (1) describe their positive or negative work experiences and other situations when they have made choices regarding their labour market participation (the story-line codes; marked in the data as, e.g.'positive working-life experience: a job from one's own vocational field'); (2) verbalise and explain these choices (the speech act codes; marked, e.g.'stresses: one's occupational knowledge') and/or (3) describe worker-citizens' rights and duties in such situations (the position codes; marked e.g.as: 'a good and skilled worker-citizen: knows working life') (Harré 2012, 196;Harré and Van Langenhove 2010, 109).The codes that marked speech acts or positions were then grouped into main themes (e.g. the speech acts that describe their negotiation with the labour market demands) to examine how or if the interviewees reproduced or challenged the discourses regarding worker-citizenship ideals maintained in vocational education and how or if their working-life experiences relate to those described by the theory of new adulthood.
In the following discussion, the anonymity of the interviewees was ensured.All job and education identifiers, among other credentials, were removed from the citations.The vocational field is only mentioned if the interviewee's anonymity is not hampered.

Positioning oneself as a proper and skilled worker-citizen
The first finding of the analysis relates to the importance of worker-citizenship for these vocational graduates.It is not, however, unambiguous in their speech, but involves negotiation.The following quote 3 from a 24-year-old unemployed machinist serves as an example: Currently, there [in the field of metal work] is more work available than jobseekers.So if my hand was okay, I would definitely work at the moment.Nevertheless, I have had to think about things over again, as I was also offered the opportunity to change my occupation.I stated, however, that I like [my occupation] so much that I will try it as long as I am able to.Changing my occupation would be the last option.
The interviewee is awaiting a response from his employer regarding whether his fixedterm contract will continue.He is simultaneously concerned about his diminished work ability and reassured that he would be employed if his situation was different.However, he claims that in his field, the demand for workers is high.He experiences metal work suiting him well and convinces his dedication to the fieldeven though his work experience has been of simpler work tasks requiring less responsibility.His example shows how he wants to position himself as a skilled worker-citizen similarly to the most other interviewees in this study.Earlier studies claim that vocational graduates may learn this pride for their occupation as part of their education (Colley et al. 2003) and aim to position themselves as serious, skilled, competent, and responsible workers (Skeggs 1997).
In other words, for many interviewees in this study, their occupation and occupational knowledge are meaningful parts of how they want to be recognised in the interviews.The above interviewee wants to avoid being labelled as a failed worker-citizen due to his weakened work ability.Compared to Farrugia's (2019a, 717-718) observations, this emphasis on one's occupational competence may be because these vocational graduates understand their success in their post-graduation lives through their vocational achievement.However, alongside this competence, the interviewee also emphasises his activity in his working-life participation during the interview.From this perspective, he is also in a negotiation whether the good worker-citizen dedicates himself to his occupation or changes his field and shows his flexibility in line with the contemporary labour market demand (see Sennett 1998).
Hence, the machinist in the above example may overly highlight his position as a proper and skilled worker-citizen because, and similarly to the young adults in Nielsen et al.'s (2017, 18) study, he understands himself as easily replaceable in the contemporary labour market in case his ability to work deteriorates.In the same way, other interviewees emphasise their coping or learning to position themselves as skilled workers despite their (precarious) labour market positions, which might be their attempt to stress their entrepreneurialism (also Ikonen and Nikunen 2019, 833-834).In the next quote, a 25-year-old employed interviewee proudly explains how he obtained his current job.After struggling to find work after his first vocational qualification as an electronics assembler, he chose another field 4 , which he considers his dream job.At the time of the interview, he is working in a zero-hour contract in an advertising company, and his contract is only for a few weeks due to the uncertainty of new work projects.Despite this, he is confident that his contribution to work is valued by his employer.
Interviewee: One day, I went to help an old friend from elementary school move [into a new home].His father was also there, saw me and apparently liked my work attitude […] and apparently my work pace was good, too.He called me last Saturday and since he's the head of an advertising agency, he said they had a job available, and [asked] 'Would you like to work with us?'.I weighed the options for a day and then concluded that because it would be a paid job and prospects for other jobs were uncertain, I would accept the offer.

And even if the contract won't continue, at least I have a foot between their door […], if they need an employee again […].
Interviewer: How long is your [contract] for … ?Interviewee: Well, basically, I have a zero-hour contract that is always project specific, but I can always express my desire to continue and if they have a new project, they will continue my contract.
Getting into work or education in an occupational field that feels like one's own is described with pride and even with relief in the interviewees' working-life stories.Like in Farrugia's (2019bFarrugia's ( , 1094Farrugia's ( -1095) ) studies, it can be interpreted here that this position enables these interviewees to utilise their competences and to do something where they are good at, where they can fulfil their occupational goals and their task in the labour marketat the same time, they reproduce the ethics of employability maintained in vocational education and demanded by the employment policies (e.g.Billett 2014; Nikunen 2017).Their pride may thus relate to their adaptation into their occupational community and related ideals in vocational education (see Leeman and Volman 2021) and their relief to their time-out from the employability demands, as the following 23year-old interviewee with an immigrant background explains.Finding work had been difficult for her with her prior foreign qualification in the hotel, restaurant and catering services and limited skills in the Finnish language.In her follow-up interview one year after the initial interview, she recounts that she has started studying hairdressing and describes her relief as follows: I really wanted to start studying and then when I found out that I got in, I was very happy because I no longer had to think about whether I had to go to a work trial or work or somewhere else.
Interpreting Skeggs (2004, 73), most interviewees adopt worker-citizenship as a proper and valued way to be positioned in society as part of their dedication to their occupation (i.e.craftsmanship) and also as their ethical responsibility in society (also Farrugia 2019aFarrugia , 2019b;;cf. Ågren 2021;Ågren, Pietilä, and Rättilä 2020).

Defending one's worker-citizenship within the realities of new adulthood
The working-life stories of vocational graduates demonstrate how some interviewees try to find a balance between the kind of worker-citizens they perceive themselves and their actual labour market position.While in line with Farrugia's (2019a, 719-720) findings, some interviewees in this study describe their anxiety or even shame when their expectations regarding worker-citizenship conflict with their labour market experiences; many also defend their positions as worker-citizens and resist the idea of their difficulties in the labour market as being their own 'failures'.The excerpt below from a 20-year-old unemployed warehouse operative provides a good example of this kind of negotiation.He had been active in scouting and in the student union and evaluates that he had been successful in his vocational studies.He had nonetheless faced great difficulties in finding work in his field.While describing the termination of his job contracts, he describes how his employers, or the labour market, had been unfair towards him.
If there had been any reason [for getting fired], it would have given me some peace of mind, but they did not give any reason.I asked if I had come late [to work], if I had done any stuff or work wrong because I never got any [complaints] about my job.Or once I did, but then, when it was explained to me, I was right about that thing.Cahill and Leccardi (2020) have demonstrated how reconciling the present with an uncertain future under the social pressures of, e.g.worker-citizenship ideals, may require young adults to create coping strategies to keep their lives together.Like the above interviewee, most interviewees in such vague labour market positions deny that they personally need help in job searching, but instead stress the insecurities and unfair demands of contemporary working life.As a coping strategy, they want to uphold their rights to be recognised as proper worker-citizens.Several interviewees describe how they had to settle for poorly paid temporary jobs with flawed working conditions, sometimes even outside their vocational fields, despite being skilled workers.Research findings by MacDonald and Giazitzoglu (2019, 10-11) support this finding; as in the first quote in this section, many young adults have experiences of these kinds of 'dead-end jobs' in which their lives are on hold.In the one-year follow-up interview, the interviewee who was waiting for a continuance for his zero-hour contract, recalls that he had experienced several part-time jobs before his current job in logistics.He has no education for his job, nor does he like it.He regards his situation, however, as quite normal in the contemporary labour market: [Since the last interview] I'm in my fourth or third job.So, the jobs are changing.But that seems to be pretty normal today.[…] In other words, it is difficult to make plans for a longer period, because I have no idea whether the job will be retained or not, and what kind of salary I will havewill I work for free or a mere pittance or will I really get paid?
In the case of these short and uncertain periods of work, the vocational graduates may have to constantly rethink their lives and plans (also Nielsen et al. 2017, 18-19).The next 25-year-old unemployed interviewee who had given up her dream occupation 5 due to her inability to work is frustrated, as she believes that employment services did not understand and support her new and supposedly clear plans.Instead, she is offered jobs that she considers irrelevant: I would like a job that does not feel like 'let's give those jobs to young adults that no one else wants to do'.
Her interview demonstrates how a perceived conflict between young graduates' own goals, competence and activity and the unfair demands of the labour market or employment services may even turn into anger or cynicism, as Rikala (2020Rikala ( , 1032) ) has shown in her study.The inconsistent demands are described below by the 25-year-old unemployed interviewee with a degree in business and administration.She claims that many employers require extensive work experience and do not provide opportunities for young graduates to gain the experience necessary to be recognised as proper and skilled workercitizens.
At times, it feels like [working life] requires a little too much.[laughs] This reminds me that the depressing thing that always comes to mind when you read those job applications or job announcements.It is that they always require work experience from one to five years.I understand it in a way, but then I think about myself and that I'm not, for example, 18 years old and just graduated from general upper secondary education.I know how to greet a customer and I don't need to be trained from the start.Nevertheless, they don't give me a chance.
Consequently, difficulties with getting employed in one's vocational field or negative experiences at work force some graduates to change or consider changing their field.The next quote is from a 23-year-old interviewee who describes the humiliation she had experienced in her first job after graduation and by her first 'real' employer.Instead of understanding a new graduate's inexperience, the employer downplayed her vocational competence and education as a hairdresser.She explains how she no longer dared to work in her original occupation, and instead, despite good grades at school, she aims to change fields.As with other interviewees who had changed their occupations due to negative work experiences or difficulties in finding work, she states that her vocational education had been wasted.
I thought I was able to do many things, but I didn't even get a chance to show it.[The termination of employment] was just because of a few awkward customers.So, I said [to my boss] that this was not a thing for me, that I would come up with something else.To that, the boss just said that it was 'better this way' and 'you probably never would have fit into this job'.It was a really negative experience, so I don't want to work in that occupation anymore.[…] It's just a pity that, after three years of studying and taking out a big student loan, you get diminished in your first job.
These findings resonate with the new adulthood debate.The experience of vocational education not leading to a promised employment is a key feature of some interviewees' post-graduation adulthood (see, Cahill and Leccardi 2020;Cuervo and Wyn 2016).As a result, they feel confusion or even frustration towards the expectations of the employers and employment services, which they perceive as unfair and unrealistic (cf.Cahill and Leccardi 2020;Cuervo and Wyn 2016;also, Farrugia 2019a).

Shaping one's worker-citizenship
Because of the constraints related to new adulthood, vocational graduates constantly modify their choices and desires to fit with their experiences and to the conflicting demands they face in the labour market.Interpreting Colley et al. (2003, 492), the ideal of worker-citizen in vocational education may guide vocational graduates' reflexive choice-making narrowly to their occupational field.In contrast, it seems that within new adulthood, some young adults aim or are forced to cross the limits of their fields.In the next quote, a 20-year-old unemployed warehouse operator describes how logistics no longer feels like the field where he wants to continue working and how he would rather work in an occupation where he can help others.At the time of the interview, he did not yet know what this field might be.
A: Well, [my dream job would be] the kind where I would actually get to help people.This would be my dream job.
Q: What do you hope for in the future from working life?A: I am hoping that I will be able to become employed and get into the occupation I want to do.And that's what I can't say yet.At least not properly.
A year later, in his follow-up interview, he states that he had started vocational studies in health and welfare.For him, the new vocational field is a new direction and by adapting entrepreneurial mindset that is linked to the modern worker-citizen ideal, problematised particularly by Kelly (e.g. 2013, 14-15), he stresses that anyone can achieve the same if they 'just work for it'.However, as Skeggs (2004, 57-61, 139, 176) has noted and several researchers (e.g.Farrugia 2019a; Nikunen 2017) have indicated, the possibilities for self-reflexive choice-making are not the same for everyone.In accordance with the discussions about new adulthood (see Woodman and Wyn 2015, 49-50, 68), some interviewees are forced to shape their worker-citizenship towards an undesired direction.The 23year-old unemployed automation assembler demonstrates this with his experiences: People who don't like to work are forced to do it, whether they want to or not, and then there are those who have found something they want to do as their profession.For them, working is just a plus, and they are even paid for it.
Similarly, as Cuervo and Wyn (2016, 131-132) have noted regarding new adulthood, the above interviewee describes how the pressures and demands of choice-making are even paralysing for him (cf.Rikala 2020Rikala , 1032)).In his follow-up interview, he has applied to media studies, which he thinks is better for him and his well-being.However, even in this interview, he emphasises that he does not want to make plans because the feelings of uncertainty cause him anxiety.Like him, some interviewees criticise the narrow ideals of worker-citizenship, where they are not able to fit their desires or life situations to their working-life paths and demand acknowledgement of their entitlement to make choices that suit them.For instance, a 24-year-old interviewee with a qualification in hairdressing and beauty care, who is planning to change her vocational field, criticises the competitive, precarious and performance-oriented nature of the labour market.
What is wrong with wanting a kind of pleasant and easy job that you like?Instead, it is considered a good thing to be in a constant hurry and have something to do all the time and it feels like these features are even required from the worker.It is assumed that you should be ready for it and have a very high tolerance for stress.
In the follow-up interview, she indicates that she has started studies at the university, which allows for critical discussions about injustices with similarly minded people, even though her future profession might not offer a specific job from the labour market.Similarly, some interviewees actively question the rigid structures of worker-citizenship ideals and elucidate injustices that they reckon are unsustainable in the long run.At the same time, as the interviewees aim to implement worker-citizenship to which they can fit their desires and occupational competences (cf.Farrugia 2019b, 1095; in line with Dewey 2007, 250-251), some even proclaim their rights to shape worker-citizenship to match their well-being.Here, a too narrow understanding of work may cause them even to undervalue their choices, which might differ from normative expectations but may also be beneficial for society (such as creative, voluntary and advocacy work, cf.Smith et al. 2005).The next 25-year-old interviewee has two qualifications from vocational education: hotel restaurant and catering and media and communication.Due to many periods of unemployment, she is considering changing her vocational field once again.For her, doing voluntary and creative work are important, and while she has great experiences from them, she is unsure how they could guarantee her a secure income and future.

Discussion and conclusions
This article has made visible how, in the atmosphere of new adulthood, worker-citizenship is a dynamic construct for vocational graduates with diverse resources in shaping their paths towards their desired direction.Some feel they are forced by the employment services or refuse to engage in worker-citizenship that does not support their desires or wellbeing.Although these observations come from Finnish labour market, they are alike to those concerning new adulthood and the related labour market (e.g.Farrugia 2019b): it can be concluded that young adults' desire for self-realisation through work, and hence how they shape their worker-citizenship, is conditioned by estimations of one's value through the idea of employabilitymaintained especially in vocational education (e.g.Billett 2014;Isopahkala-Bouret, Lappalainen, and Lahelma 2014).Acquiring workercitizenship based on their vocational qualification is an important achievement for most young vocational graduates (cf.Ågren 2021; Ågren, Pietilä, and Rättilä 2020; Farrugia 2019b) that can be challenged by negative work experiences, demands and uncertainties in working life and by their concerns about personal well-being and coping.Balancing their lives within the uncertainties of new adulthood is stressful (Cuervo and Wyn 2016, 132), especially for those vocational graduates occupying an insecure position in the labour market.
Although research has shown that the Finnish labour market has remained stable and that the working-life paths of young adults stabilise as their work experience accumulates and that vocational education is a secure way into the labour market for vocationally oriented young adults (Pyöriä and Ojala 2016;Silliman and Virtanen 2019), for some vocational graduates, worker-citizenship is a continuous negotiation of their value.For instance, while the experiences of the interviewees in this study might support the research findings according to which those vocational graduates who face difficulties with gaining work experience in their field risk ending up in an insecure, unskilled labour market (see Buchs and Helbling 2016), for some, this situation appears even more complicated than this.It seems that even being skilled workers, their secure position as worker-citizens is not self-evident: some attempt or are forced to change their field, not because of the limited vacancies but because they have negative experiences from the labour market, e.g. in the form of unfair work contracts, undervaluing their work experience or unrealistic demands and the pressures for continuous choice-making.Accordingly, sometimes their decision to choose another vocational path is an act of wellbeing in front of a distressing working life (also Cahill and Leccardi 2020;Rikala 2020Rikala , 1031)).
Shaping worker-citizenship in a desired direction is not an easy task (see Farrugia 2019a; Kelly 2017).The data in this article includes young vocational graduates with mixed labour market experiences.While many regard achieving one's position as a skilled worker-citizen as a great occupational achievement (similarly as in Farrugia 2019bin Farrugia , 1095;;cf. Ågren 2021), for some of them, shaping one's worker-citizenship can be a great struggle (cf.Woodman and Wyn 2015, 49-50, 68).The article does not describe all the vocational graduates' experiences but documents how some young adults with vocational qualifications face issues described in the new adulthood debate.Their vocational qualification has not succeeded in fulfilling its promises in the labour market, as they struggle to integrate into the labour market.They are balancing their well-being with the demands of working life, and their decision-making seems to be a continuous process requiring various coping strategies (Cahill and Leccardi 2020;also, Cuervo and Wyn 2016;Dwyer and Wyn 2001;Woodman and Wyn 2015;Wyn 2020).Therefore, understanding how 'failing' to achieve worker-citizenship feels within the new realities of adulthood is important.Like in Farrugia's studies (2019a, 719-720), the other side of valuing worker-citizenship is that young adults feel frustration, inadequacy and some even shame when they cannot fulfil the ideals.Rikala (2020Rikala ( , 1035) ) has suggested that, for these reasons, strict obligations related to worker-citizenship's employability goals are the core reason for young adults' problems with mental well-being when they learn to value themselves only by their labour market positions.McGrath et al. (2020), in turn, have presented an alternative perspective highlighting the development of vocational education from the perspective of a just and sustainable society.According to their model, vocational education should acknowledge how labour market ideals and changing societal structures impact young vocational graduates' opportunities to live a good life.Following Harris, Cuervo, and Wyn (2021, 95-96), it can be stated that the education and employment policies, by placing the responsibility of employability on the young adult, may overtake the struggles and negotiations young vocational graduates undergo regarding their sense of belonging within the vagueness of worker-citizenship.Hence, their diverse experiences and views are important messages for vocational education providers, employers and employment services on how to shape a more sustainable labour market and support young adults' wellbeing.

Notes
1. 20% were unemployed, 17% in further education and others, for instance, in non-military or military service.2. These four interviews were follow-ups for group interviews (12) collected from vocational students in 2018 and 2019, analysed by Ågren, Pietilä, and Rättilä (2020) and Ågren (2021).3. The quotes are freely translated from Finnish to English. 4. The vocational field is not mentioned because of anonymity.5.The vocational field is not mentioned because of anonymity.

I
perhaps have a bit of a contradiction in what kind of work I'm good at, what kind of work I am able to get along financially with, what kind of work the world really needs and what is vital.And then, finally, my own passion.