Becoming adult in hard times

Current and future issues on job insecurity and autonomy

AA.VV.

• Editore: Accademia University Press
• Anno: 2017
• ISBN:
  9788899200879
• Argomento: Scienze sociali
• Categoria: Lavoro in ambito sociale

It is well known that the current economic recession has affected the youth population more than other age cohorts in many European countries. Nevertheless, the effects on young people's daily lives are have not been carefully examined by intertwining different scientific perspectives. In addition to the growing attention paid to the unemployment rate, other consequences risk being underestimated. This contribution focuses on the consequences of early job insecurity and labour-market exclusion (i.e. unemployment or economic inactivity) for European youth's autonomy in terms of leaving the parental home and forming one's own family. Thanks to a fruitful scientific dialogue between sociology and psychology, the authors critically discuss an updated literature review on the transition from youth to adult life.The book has been written by a group of scholars working at the Department of Culture, Politics and Society and Psychology (University of Turin, IT) jointly with a colleague from the Umea University (SE).

1. Definitions of autonomy

The word autonomy is derived from Ancient Greek (αὐτονομία) self and law and means «one who gives oneself one’s own law»: the capacity of a individual to make a decision in a conscious and unforced way, taking on the moral responsibility and accountability for one’s actions.

The notion of youth autonomy refers to plural definitions in sociology. Steps towards crossing vis-à-vis the independence of the family, ability to create one’s own universe, to govern his life through relevant choices. The different definitions of autonomy have accumulated over time without being replaced (Cicchelli 2013). They therefore cover many aspects of young people’s lives, making autonomy a central issue of youth and of the transition to adult life.

The economic and housing situation of youth is mainly affected by the macroeconomic context that can be also altered by well-designed social policies and therefore remains a subject of governmental responsibility. Also psychological autonomy is an important topic because many guidance policies (counselling programs) are designed with the aim to foster youth intentionality in different life domains.

1.1. Housing autonomy

Housing independence can be considered a particularly important event because, among other things, it explicitly marks the achievement of individual independence and the assumption of roles of responsibility. Beyond this aspect, the way in which a young person leaves home is particularly important also by virtue of their interdependence and consequences with other spheres of life that are strictly linked to the same.

Living independently is a step towards adulthood that is related to taking full responsibility for actions and being able to create an identity, which is more independent from that of the parents (Nilsson and Strandh 1999). Leaving the parental home is also a transition that makes other key transitions to adulthood possible. For many young people, leaving home is seen, for instance, as a precondition for getting married and having children.

Powerful meanings and expectations are associated with it: it signifies freedom and privacy (Rusconi 2006) and is the beginning of the process of forming an independent household, which is the focal point for several developmental progresses (Bendit 1999).

The way in which youth becomes autonomous has changed in the last 30 years. Even though there are differences within specific cultures, the expectations generally associated with living independently are linked to a sense of well-being, privacy and intimacy (Gaiser 1999).

However, as we have seen, today residential autonomy does not coincide with economic independence. During the fordism era, to become an adult you needed to become independent residentially and financially through a good and stable job. On the contrary, today situations of youth like dependency and adult autonomy may co-exist simultaneously within the same biography (Walther et al. 2002). The concept of residential independence does not exclude any form of financial dependence from parents. This is reflected in a remarkable proportion of youth who live away from them and still receive substantial material support from their parents. The percentage of parents, aged 50-plus, providing financial support to their children ranges from 25% in the wealthiest countries of Northern Europe to 15% in Southern Europe (Fokkema et al. 2008).

Just like Galland (2000), Cicchelli (2013) also favours using the concept of «residential autonomy» rather than «housing independency» to describe young adult housing conditions. The concept of autonomy does not exclude any form of dependence from parents. Scientific studies show how difficult it is to identify young adults who accomplish the home-leaving transition without the backing of their family. At the same time, it is rare if their family of origin does not support them when leaving the parental home.

Then we will use the category of young adults (Walther 2006) to indicate people to locate in an «in-between» category of youth and adult.

From this point of view, the changes that occurred in the labour market had been central, especially the process of labour market flexibility, which had seen youth as the losers of the globalization process.

The factors that influence the way and time of youth’s housing autonomy in different institutional contexts are labour market regulation, house tenure and cultural norms.

In reality, house tenure has different meanings according to the institutional context that influences the decision by young people to leave the parental home: not only do housing markets and policies vary in different institutional contexts, but also the norms relative to leaving home. In particular, there are countries in which it is considered very important to leave the parental home when you can buy a house or inheritance home. In this case, parents can have a central role.

1.2. Economic autonomy

Economic autonomy means having one’s own sufficient income. For young people it is important to obtain economic autonomy – or to cope with the absence of it – at least in three phases of the process of acquisition of housing autonomy:

1. when they leave home;
2. when they would like to maintain the status of leaving home, that is to maintain the economic autonomy in everyday life and also on the occasion of particular «transition markers» such as parenthood or career changes;
3. when they have to provide for themselves with regard to housing autonomy in the future; when they are older; this issue is linked with the long-term economic consequences of employment precariousness.

During these phases, youth may have to change home because they want a bigger house and/or they have increasing expenses that do not allow them to maintain the same house. Housing and economic autonomy, then, depends on the impact of different life paths – personal, working etc. – of the individual. Focusing on the impact of employment precariousness on autonomy, we can identify the main critical situations for each of the previous phases. We will focalise on the first two.

The acquisition of economic autonomy is an important factor to support leaving the parental home, because it is a precondition to renting or buying a house. Employment precariousness affects this event from various points of view. First, lack of economic autonomy may stop the leaving home phase of young people who do not want or cannot have economic support from their parents.

A precarious job may also entail denied access to a mortgage or rent because of the lack of an adequate level of income, or simply there are no guarantees about their income stability. Another important thing is the impossibility to saving due to employment conditions: saving can be useful in order to have an initial amount of money that allows covering the starting expenses of having one’s own house. Before leaving the parental home, and all things being equal (education, work, income), the situation of young people is very different if they can save compared to those who contribute to the family budget, often with a significant part of their income. This depends not only on family wealth but also on the structure of values and economic socialization (Bourdieu 1963; Zelizer 1994; Roy 2006).

These issues are related to psychological and social factors: what is the desirable level of economic stability that can change across individual aptitudes, shared social norms and values, class and social groups. Young people may delay leaving home until they have a stable contract, even if they have the benefit of an adequate income: in this case, the effect of job insecurity on autonomy is not shaped by economic autonomy.

After leaving home, young people have to pay their house expenses and all the other costs not yet sustained by their parents. Managing money, programming the outflow in coherence with their own income requires economic and financial competencies and is a difficult practice to learn, especially in the presence of instability in the employment situation, when the income is not regular. In case of the lack of wage due to temporary unemployment or training needs, youth has to draw upon other financial resources such as savings or going into debt. These issues are strongly interrelated with the socialisation to use of money received from parents, and to a desired lifestyle, also given the lifestyle of their peers.

Economic autonomy is not necessarily linked with housing autonomy: it is the case of economic support of parents to young people leaving home for educational achievement, for example. On the other hand, some debts are never extinguished and are transmitted by inheritance, and in some cases, helping parents settle their debts may be perceived as a moral obligation by youth living at the parents’ home.

Strictly linked to economic autonomy, and in particular the probability of losing it, there is the concept of Financial Vulnerability, the individual level of exposure to external events or mistakes in individual financial choices, given the initial condition and their economic, domestic, work and health situation. It is the result of the combination of the individual «financial career» or «debt career» with other individual careers and economic trends. Financial vulnerability co-occurs with labour market vulnerability to create social exclusion, by increasing the potential risk of cumulative disadvantages; this often depends on compensatory mechanisms enacted by the individual, and is a new and important issue of European policies against social exclusion (see Busso et al. 2015).

The concept of financial vulnerability is strongly interrelated with the subjective well-being and health status: financial problems such as inherited debt, unpaid debt, tax collection notices, bad payer label can shape individual perception of job insecurity, by increasing related stress and by making the overall well-being situation worse. The fear of dispossession in case of unpaid debt may create distrust in g...

Indice dei contenuti

• Transition to adult life in the last 30 years and the effect of job insecurity
• 1. Definitions of autonomy
• 2. Empirical research on early job insecurity and housing autonomy
• 3. The economic crisis and its consequences on youth life-paths
• 4. Coping strategies and decisional mechanism
• 5. The difficult process of autonomy in these hard times. Suggestions from the policy level
• References
• Authors