SEGURIDAD Y SALUD

Although there is some debate over the extent of continuities with past decades, it is generally agreed that school to work transitions have become both more extended and more complex since the decline of youth employment in the 1970s (Furlong, 2009; Roberts, 2009). As Goodwin and O‟Connor (2005) point out, transitions were

never as collective or smooth as the image of a „golden age‟ _{in the 1960s suggests;}

nevertheless, qualitative changes have occurred in post-school experiences. Participation in full-time education has increased markedly as traditional youth employment opportunities have dwindled and the road to a „steady job‟ has lengthened (European Commission, 2009, p.115), whilst post-16 routes have

training and the increasing location of available work within smaller units, particularly in the service sector. As a result, young people face more complex structures of opportunity, and are expected to engage in the reflexive navigation of these opportunities in order to construct a marketable self. However, their experiences remain highly structured in terms of gender, ethnicity and particularly social class (Furlong and Cartmel, 2007; Roberts, 2009). Although class-based segregation in secondary and tertiary education has reduced, the objective and subjective dimensions of how young people deal with diversity and choice still lead to social stratification in post-compulsory routes, and the end of compulsory schooling continues to be a point of social dispersal and differentiation (Ball, Macrae and Maguire, 1999; Furlong, 2009).

Ulrich Beck argues that we are currently experiencing a process in which social inequality becomes more individualised as traditional patterns and arrangements in work and society are weakened and replaced, on the one hand by expectations of self-actualisation, and on the other hand by increased reliance on individual resources. The contradictions inherent in this process mean that, whilst the structure of social inequality in developed countries is remarkably stable, „questions concerning inequality are no longer perceived and politically handled as class questions‟, and individual-level solutions compete with collective responses to the social risks of wage labour, such as unemployment and deskilling (Beck and Beck- Gernsheim 2006, p.143). As a result, inequalities are redefined in terms of individualised risks, with social problems being perceived in the light of psychological dispositions and personal attributes. Although this process is partly ideological, Beck and writers such as Giddens (1991), Lash (1992) and Bauman (2001) see it as characteristic of the period of „late modernity‟, in which the intensification of trends such as globalisation, the disembedding of social relations from local structures, and increasing reflexivity in knowledge and behaviour all require individuals to assume responsibility for navigating increasingly complex options.

It is useful to draw a distinction at this point, between individualisation as a structural product of capitalism in late modernity, and therefore as a process to be critiqued, and discourses which take individualisation at face value, using it to justify individual- level solutions to social inequalities. This latter tendency is reflected in UK Government discourse on NEET young people throughout the New Labour period, and is unlikely to change under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition which came to power in May 2010. Within this discourse, participation is conceived as

increasing individual employability by developing work-related skills, attributes and dispositions. Conversely, factors which increase the risk of disengagement from learning and employment, such as low attainment, restricted aspirations, and negative attitudes and behaviours are essentialised, regarded as properties of young people, families and communities, rather than as consequences of structural inequality.

In young people‟s own accounts, being NEET is often attributed to an inability to compete in education and labour markets due to low academic ability, lack of experience, and low confidence (DCSF/ONS, 2009, p.34). However, although adverse labour market conditions impact on all social groups, structural factors continue to be important, particularly those relating to social class. Recent data from the Youth Cohort Study (YCS) and the Longitudinal Study of Young People in

England (LSYPE) show a strong association between socio-economic status (SES)2

and being NEET (DCSF/ONS, 2009). Young people from low-SES backgrounds are significantly more likely to be NEET than those from professional backgrounds (Table 1). Furthermore, they are also more likely to lack academic qualifications, and to be in Government-supported training schemes, both of which are associated with increased risk of being NEET in the future (Coles et al. 2002, p.26).

To some extent, lower NEET rates amongst high-SES young people are a consequence of greater participation in full-time education, and even for those who are relatively privileged, early entry to the labour market increases the risk of becoming NEET. As Table 1 shows, when NEET rates are calculated as a proportion of those not in full-time education, social class differences are less sharply defined and, as the individualisation thesis would suggest, declining youth labour markets affect all social classes. Similarly, in Table 2 only NEET young people from higher professional backgrounds have a substantially shorter average time in NEET status than those in other SES categories, again suggesting that the risks of seeking employment at an early age are not confined to low-SES groups. Nevertheless, these risks are not equally shared, and Table 1 indicates that even amongst those who enter the labour market early, NEET rates are considerably higher for young people from low-SES backgrounds than for their more privileged peers. Furthermore, although SES differences in the average length of time NEET are generally not large, Table 2 shows that the likelihood of spending more than 12 months NEET is much greater for low-SES young people than for those from professional backgrounds.

the experience and outcomes of being NEET may vary greatly between young people from low and high-SES backgrounds.

In deprived neighbourhoods, awareness of broader social divisions can be constrained by location and class; MacDonald et al. (2005, p.880) describe their participants as experiencing a lack of contrast which underpinned their „bemusement‟ at the idea that they might be socially excluded. Although many young people show some awareness of structured inequalities, their responses to the situations they face are individual rather than collective (Furlong, 2009, p.349). As Furlong points out, job titles and cultural preferences are no longer immediate indicators of class position, and young people of all classes may be found in higher education or working alongside each other in service environments. However, this does not mean that class-based patterns in youth transitions have disappeared or become irrelevant. Young people continue to face situations which are structured along the lines of class, but – through education and employment choices and consumption decisions

– _{deal with these situations at an individual level. Furlong and Cartmel (2007) draw}

attention to this growing disjuncture between objective and subjective experiences, referring to it as the epistemological fallacy of late modernity, in which „People‟s life chances remain highly structured at the same time as they increasingly seek

solutions on an individual, rather than a collective basis‟ (p.5). Reflexive

modernisation (Lash 1992) has not freed young people from predictable social paths; rather, by weakening collectivist traditions and intensifying individualism, it has obscured the role of social structures in shaping life chances.