Youth Social Policy

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Journal of Youth Studies

ISSN: 1367-6261 (Print) 1469-9680 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjys20

British Youth Transitions in Comparative Perspective

John Bynner

To cite this article: John Bynner (2001) British Youth Transitions in Comparative Perspective, Journal of Youth Studies, 4:1, 5-23, DOI: 10.1080/13676260120028529

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Journal of Youth Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1, 5–23, 2001

British Youth Transitions in Comparative Perspective

JOHN BYNNER

ABSTRACT Cohen and Ainley’s recent critique of mainstream British youth research programmes with the emphasis on ‘transition’ prompts a reappraisal. Viewed compara- tively, and within the holistic framework offered by life-course theory, youth transitions research offers the means of addressing key theoretical and policy questions about the changing situation of young people. Some methodological cautions needed in the interpretation of comparative youth transition data are given, and the distinctive features of British transitions in the areas of economic and domestic life are discussed, taking account of the historical and cultural base on which they are founded. Finally, recent initiatives to tackle ‘youth problems’ are considered, especially in relation to engaging young people ‘not in education, employment or training’, in the mainstream transition process; the Žrst steps towards continental models of comprehensive youth policy and services to support young people are also examined. It is concluded that the changing situation of youth demands more rather than less research on youth transitions within a comparative, holistic and longitudinal research framework.

Introduction

Recent questioning by Cohen & Ainley (2000) of the value of youth transitions research, especially as pursued through the UK Economic and Social Science Research Council’s research programmes, points to the need for a reappraisal. Cohen and Ainley argue that youth transitions are typically seen in ‘economism’ terms, the starting point being the immature unemployable child and the end point the independent employable adult. This denies the socio-cultural construc- tion of youth as a distinct stage in the life-course and bypasses its cultural expression in response to social and political change. Moreover, the rich themes of continental youth research and policies and the role of youth movements and youth politics are overlooked. The UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)’s current programme, Youth Citizenship and Social Change, follows in the same faulty footsteps as its late-1980s’ predecessor the 16–19 Initiative, using awed empiricist approaches to unravel the changing nature of transitions under new circumstances. Lack of an integrated research design, which was the saving grace of the 16–19 Initiative, has produced an ‘incoherent mix’ in the new programme, ensuring that the critical issues concerning the meaning of young people’s experience are passed by. The antidote offered is a ‘third way’ that joins up the different strands of empirical enquiry in the development of a comp- rehensive theory of youth ‘cultural learning’ to explain how young people

John Bynner, Centre for Longitudinal Studies, Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1 0AH, UK. Email: [email protected]

1367–6261 Print/1469-9680 Online/01/010005-19 Ó 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: 10.1080/1367626012002852 9

6 J. Bynner

attach meaning to, and gain identity from, the roles expected of them in working and leisure life.

Without wishing to deny the value of Cohen and Ainley’s criticisms and prescriptions, I see them more as a helpful corrective to what are sometimes too narrowly focused and uncoordinated youth research projects, rather than consti- tuting a call for an alternative paradigm. Ironically, the rationale for the criticized Youth, Citizenship and Social Change programme was drawn up at a conference—attended by Phil Cohen—that was designed to remove the limita- tions of earlier ESRC research programmes [1] and to bring continental perspec- tives to bear on the new agenda (Bynner et al., 1997a). The purpose of this paper is not so much to argue with Cohen and Ainley’s position, as to take it as a stimulus for considering what we can learn and have learned from youth transitions research in the British context. This provides a basis for delineating comparatively the main features of current British youth transitions and some of the new youth policy that is emerging.

There are three reasons why youth transitions is a worthwhile subject for study.

(1) Within the life-course perspective (Elder, 1998; Giele & Elder, 1998), tran- sition in the broadest sense identiŽes the behavioural manifestation of the interaction between social structure, biology and personality (personal agency) in the construction of the youth phase; charting what individuals (and groups) actually do, and how this is changing, is the Žrst step to understanding what it means.

(2) The forms and functions of youth transitions are the anchor point of comparative youth study, whereby understanding is gained of the cultural and intergenerational components of the youth phase through the institu- tions which each society uses to shape transition and through which adult identity is formed (Bynner & Chisholm, 1998).

(3) Transition, albeit mainly to work, is the topic through which policy makers become engaged with the wider set of problems confronting young people and from which additional resources ow (Social Exclusion Unit, 1999a,b, 2000).

What follows from these attributes of youth transitions research in terms of a comparative research agenda? The Žrst issue to address is methodology.

Some Comparative Cautions

To explain how the transition to adulthood in one country differs from that of other countries, we need to locate it in socio-historical time (Alwin, 1995). This is particularly evident in Britain, where a radical transformation in the context of youth transitions, and the form they take, has been underway for 20 years (Adamski & Grootings, 1989; Jones & Wallace, 1992; Furlong & Cartmel, 1997). However, such considerations apply more generally.

Comparative data of the kind that Eurostat, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Educational, ScientiŽc and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) produce represent a series of snapshots taken at different time points, from data sources of varying quality and construction, and across nation states. They also reect how each country chooses to communicate its social proŽle to itself and to the world at large. An

British Youth Transitions in Comparative Perspective 7

array of political and administrative decisions lie behind such proŽles—the ever-present Achilles heel of statistical comparison (see, for example, Kitsuse & Cicourel, 1963, on the problems in interpreting criminological statistics). More- over, in each country the processes to which the indicators relate are changing. We see secular trends in the rise in age of Žrst marriage, becoming a parent, leaving education, and so on. These cut across the comparisons at particular points in time. They are synchronous with respect to outcomes but not with respect to processes.

Similarly, the differing age groups to which many comparative Žgures relate, direct attention to the strong age effect in all the components of transition. We need therefore to be exceptionally careful in talking about comparative differ- ences in a particular set of outcomes in family life, health or attitudes, when the age groups to which the data relate differ. Each group studied at a particular point in time represents a different birth cohort with different life-time experi- ences. These experiences are shaped by the policy context in which development takes place.

These are the more technical matters that raise problems in connection with national, let alone international, statistical comparison. There are also more fundamental methodological and theoretical questions that need to be taken into account (Bynner & Chisholm, 1998). The following examples give pointers to the most important of these.

Institutional Context

The Žrst is the interconnectedness of activity across the different domains of life. Leaving home to get married is intimately connected with such biologically- based transition experiences as Žrst sexual experience, and more indirectly, the stage reached in the transition to work (Crocket & Silbereisen, 2000). The interplay of inuences that impacts on these activities across the different life domains argues for viewing youth transitions holistically. It also reects the deep-seated cultural traditions and structural imperatives that are manifested in the institutional arrangements through which the different elements of the transition to adulthood are achieved (Bynner, 2000). There is evidence to suggest that even in the societies that transformed their institutions under the draconian requirements of Soviet-style communism, the cultural assumptions underlying their functioning remained relatively intact (Wallace & Kovatheva, 1998; Leiser- ing & Liebfried, 1999; Bynner & Silbereisen, 2000).

The education, training and employment systems prevailing in each country determine how a particular transition route is navigated and its end point is achieved. This is of central importance in determining both how youth transi- tions are managed and also how youth itself is conceived. For example, Ger- many, in common with most other European countries, anticipates, for those young people not going on to higher education, a fairly long period of prep- aration for adult employment. This is underpinned by a ‘training culture’ in which all interested parties—the ‘social partners’—work to ensure, over as long a period as possible, that all such young people make the transition from school to work successfully. In the German case the institutionalized expression of this training culture is the ‘dual system’ of apprenticeship in which, over three years, work-based training under the terms of a training contract is accompanied by one or two days spent each week in a vocational school—the Berufsschule

8 J. Bynner

(Bynner & Roberts, 1991; Evans & Heinz, 1994). In Sweden the regulation of early work experience comes through the secondary school system where classroom-based study gives way increasingly to work experience with employ- ers. In both systems young people’s roles are clearly deŽned as student/trainee and their period in them deŽnes what is meant in these countries by the term ‘youth’ (Bynner, 1994; Bynner & Evans, 1994).

Until relatively recently, Britain had no such tradition of comprehensive vocational training. Under the conditions of a collapsing youth labour market at the end of the 1970s, Britain was forced to develop ‘youth training’ as an alternative to work (Ashton & Maguire, 1983; Ashton & Lowe, 1991). However, there was no deeply rooted belief in such a transitional arrangement as a worthwhile experience for all young people in its own right. In British terms the individual is either a dependent child at school or an adult at work (Jones & Wallace, 1992). It was noteworthy in a session in the 1994 NYRIS (Nordic Youth Research and Information Service) conference (Tønsberg, Norway) that British speakers referred to ‘youth jobs’ and ‘youth work’. Some of the Scandinavian delegates present responded that putting youth and work together is a ‘contra- diction in terms’ (see Mørch, 1997)!

The hallmark of British traditions and British policy in this area, argued as Žercely in European forums devoted to the adult labour market as in those devoted to young people’s transitions, is that of exibility. In their OECD review of British transitions from school to work, Raffe et al. (1998) identify Žve distinctive features of the British arrangements.

· Flexible outcomes: there is no concept of ‘graduation’ from secondary education in the American sense, only open-ended vocational preparation pathways with exible exit points.

· Flexible inputs: the same qualiŽcation can be obtained in a variety of institu- tions and by different modes of study—full-time/part time; classroom based/ distance teaching—and may involve different collections of subjects under the typical modular scheme.

· Flexible pathways: combinations of vocational and academic routes and qualiŽcations are possible across the vocational/academic divide and there can be movement between them.

· Flexible combinations: there is overlap between education/training and the labour market, and there can be movement between them.

· Flexible choices and markets: there is emphasis on student and provider choice rather than on central prescription, with Scotland being the most exible UK country in this respect [2].

Such exibility favours those who want to keep their options open and have the resources to recover when the choices they make work out badly. It also leaves open the possibility of second chances for those who drop out early. But others, whose situation prevents them ever taking this step, face the risk of being steadily squeezed out of the system—losing sight, when young, of the ever-pre- sent conveyor belt that is taking the majority along (Coles, 1995).

Political System

Institutions operate in accordance with the prevailing political system. They will be sustained or transformed to meet the political objectives of the party in

British Youth Transitions in Comparative Perspective 9

power. Another major source of inuence on young people is consequently the policies affecting the institutions of transition over the period when a given cohort is passing through them. But often, of course, there is a lag between the introduction of new policies and the changes of behaviour and attitude that may follow them. In Britain it took 10 years before school leavers and their families acknowledged the lack of jobs, and young people started staying on in edu- cation. By the end of the 1980s staying on had just begun to exceed 70%, compared with less than 50% through most of the preceding decade.

Governments also affect the climate of opinion surrounding young people and the way their problems are viewed. The behaviour of some, whether in school, in the football stadium or in the nightclub, is quickly identiŽed with all (Brannen et al., 1994). Moral panics ensue, leading to toughening up of legislative and policing measures to deal with those who offend (Cohen, 1997). At the same time, as Marsh (1991) argues, the politicization of some young people in highly charged areas can be an important factor in getting government to think again. In Britain, recent examples are the Thatcher government’s ‘poll tax’, nuclear power, the building of motorways, animal rights and the introduction of genetically modiŽed food.

Meanings

The strong cultural element residing in the institutional structures and the political response of different countries to them also brings with it problems of meaning, i.e. what is the comparative statistical information actually telling us (Bynner & Chisholm, 1998)? The indicators that are, in theory, objective and comparable, may take on different cultural nuances in the different language cultures in which they operate. It is a strong assumption that English words convey the same meaning when translated into a different language culture. Such words as, for example, ‘youth’, ‘family’, ‘work’ and ‘training’, have subjective and culturally based elements in them that challenge the idea that they really do mean exactly the same thing in all the countries that are compared.

Some commonly used French words such as ‘insertion’ (which sounds En- glish) and ‘precarité’ (which does not), are simply untranslatable into English, because they reect the relationship between the individual and the state in terms of a social contract that has no place in British consciousness. The subjects of the British Queen have no right to expect that a place will be found for them in employment; the French citizen believes that the state has failed in its obligations if such an ‘insertion’ into employment fails to happen.

It remains to be seen whether the pressures towards harmonization of struc- tures and practices synonymous with the development of the European Union will in time override such deeply based distinctions, and whether words relating to young people will then come to mean the same thing in all the countries involved.

Heterogeneity

National comparisons based on mean indicators, sometimes broken down by gender, again mask the heterogeneity which is the hallmark of all societies but takes quite different forms from one domain to the next. Most obviously,

10 J. Bynner

stratiŽcation by class, education, ethnicity, religion and gender all reveal con- siderable variability in the kind of transition outcomes that are compared (Bynner et al., 1997a). Occupational achievement, political interest and activity and the timing of the transition to partnership and parenthood, for example, are strongly related to educational level achieved and gender (Bynner et al., 1997b, 2000), but the strength of the relationship differs quite markedly between countries. If the distribution of such demographic factors does not vary across countries, then clearly there are national differences in the transition indicator itself. If the distribution does vary then this lies, in part, behind the differences in the mean values of the indicator. Hence we may not necessarily be observing comparisons between indicators across countries, so much as comparisons between distributions of the core elements of the social structure.

This ties in with another source of variation, that to do with region. There are huge differences in the nature of, and buoyancy of, opportunity structures from one area to the next and these are themselves under constant economic and political pressure to change. Thus the gulf between northern and southern Italy, eastern, western and southern Germany, and between the different countries of the United Kingdom works against the uniformity offered by what are often common institutions.

On the other hand, against diversity, globalization points to continuous move- ment towards convergence and homogeneity across countries in many areas of social and economic life, as opposed to uniqueness and heterogeneity (Brown & Lauder, 1996). The comparative Žgures give many indications of general trends in this direction for young people: most notably the extension of the transition from school to work and the postponement of marriage and parenthood. The very visible development of international youth culture may be seen as one other more commercially inspired development in this direction, although how deeply it cuts across young people’s national and regional consciousness and identity is debatable (Chisholm, 1998).

Between countries, regional distinctiveness, at least at this point in time, is still clearly evident. On some dimensions there are pointers to a northern Europe/ southern Europe divide (see, for example, Helve, 2000), and on others to an English-speaking/continental Europe distinction (Evans, 2000.) Yet again, east- ern European versus western European distinctions in relation to such matters as health, attitudes to and postponement of parenthood, are also evident (Coles, 2000; Helve, 2000; Roberts & Foti, 2000).

British Youth Compared

With all the above qualiŽcations in mind, where can we locate Britain in the comparative framework? The impression gained is one of communality with English-speaking countries, especially the US, on some indicators—in the area of crime and deviant behaviour, for example [3], and on teenage parenthood [4]. On other indicators, Britain shares more in common with northern Europe, particularly in relation to the move away from home into single living, cohabi- tation, family life and the postponement of parenthood [5]. First sexual experi- ence in Britain also occurs at the early end of the age spectrum, but above that of the Nordic countries [6].

In common with the US, young British people (in their early twenties) spend less time in education than they do in other western countries and more time

British Youth Transitions in Comparative Perspective 11

watching television [7]. With respect to attitudes and values, they are in the middle position on many dimensions, but are lowest on satisfaction with work and education [8]. In relation to health, they move right to the bottom of the hierarchy, sharing, in common with East European young people, the least healthy lifestyles [9]. Yet they are also more engaged than young people in any other country in the leisure pursuits associated with youth culture [10].

In relation to mortality, death rates are comparable to those of northern Europe, although suicide is rarer than in some countries, and accidents more common [11].

Perhaps the most signiŽcant difference of all, at any given age, is that in their teens and early twenties, far more British young people will be found at work than their counterparts in other northern European countries. This arises from the accelerated transition that marks out Britain from the rest of northern Europe and places it more in the company of southern and eastern Europe [12].

Youth Transitions

In order to interpret these distinctions and similarities we need to locate the British transition Žgures more roundly in their proper social, economic and policy context. What characterizes British youth and the transitions that they pass through?

Invisible Youth

First it needs to be said that, in ofŽcial terms, there has been until relatively recently a degree of invisibility about ‘youth’. In a review for the European Commission of young people’s situation across Europe, Chisholm & Bergeret reported the UK government ofŽcials, who they interviewed, as saying:

In the UK, people are regarded as adults from the age of 18, when they can vote and enter legal contracts on their own initiative. The issues and problems, which affect people between the age of 18 and 25, will also affect people in other age groups. Even below the age of 18 years of age they are not a homogeneous group. For these reasons, the UK prefers to consider the problems of young people within the context of the needs of the population as a whole. (1991, pp. 8–9)

In Britain, alone among European countries other than Italy, there has so far been no ministerial responsibility for youth. As a report on the situation of European youth by the UK House of Lords (1991) noted, the interests of young people, insofar as they are acknowledged at all, are latched onto provisions for adults across all the different ministries for social services, welfare, health and so on. Nevertheless, as Chisholm & Bergeret go on to say:

Young people certainly exist, but for the majority, youth is traditionally a short-lived status. It may nevertheless be a highly culturally creative and intense period of life, as shown in the production of youth (sub) cultures and youth styles which has a particularly rich tradition in the UK (1991, p. 9).

12 J. Bynner

From School to Work

The origins of the ‘invisibility’ of youth to British ofŽcialdom lie in the last century, and central to it is the strong class structure that prevails. First in the industrialization stakes in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Britain developed a distinction between bourgeoisie and proletariat, which has persisted in a much stronger form than in most other countries. Underlying the distinction is the notion of destinies based on family background and (inherited) native ability, each of which dictates a different kind of route to adulthood.

Thus it became the British tradition that the extension of transition through a prolonged period of education, training and work experience, before adult employment is fully taken on, was the prerogative of the middle class. Working- class young people were expected to leave full-time education at the minimum statutory age of 16 to get a job. Until the mid 1970s, over 70% of the population left school before 16 (before 15 until 1973), the statutory minimum leaving age. The elite of each school-leaver cohort (in the order of 600 000) entered appren- ticeships, but these were mainly for boys in the skilled trades, and only 120 000 got them. The rest entered jobs of varying quality, some providing training and some not. There was a large amount of unskilled and semi-skilled work available, and education and qualiŽcations carried so little value that there was little incentive to stay on (Banks et al., 1992). So consistent was this pattern up until the late 1970s that Schaffer & Hargreaves (1978), in planning the Žrst British youth research programme, Young People in Society, were able to write conŽdently that: ‘Most adolescents join the labour market at the age of 16. It is the normal life experience of the adolescent’ (p. 92).

The massive technological changes that took place in the early 1980s were a major challenge to these arrangements. The youth labour market collapsed and large numbers of young people, instead of entering jobs, became unemployed (Ashton & Maguire, 1983, 1986; Ashton & Lowe, 1991). The government’s response in the early 1980s, through the now defunct Manpower Services Commission, was made through the ‘New Training Initiative’. This attempted to introduce what had been for some time the norm in continental countries: training as an alternative to work (Ainley & Corney, 1990). There were a series of initiatives throughout the 1980s to engage all young school leavers in some kind of training opportunity, including at the end of the period a revamped apprenticeship system, modelled in certain respects on German lines (Bynner & Roberts, 1991).

The difŽculty with the whole approach was the cultural resistance from young people, their families and employers to the idea that training or vocational preparation was a necessary prerequisite to work. There was a deep-seated aversion to training as a means of achieving adult status. What you needed to know to do a job was taught on the job itself: training was either an alternative to work—a kind of ‘quasi-education’—or if it took place with an employer, was often little better than ‘slave labour’ (Banks et al., 1992). The training allowance was roughly half the value of the average youth wage at the time. Education occupied childhood, and the moment the opportunity came to leave it for work, it had to be taken. Families needed the young person’s employment as a source of income; employers assumed that young people leaving school at 16 would be entering jobs and valued them in terms of the work experience that they had.

British Youth Transitions in Comparative Perspective 13

QualiŽcations other than the traditional academic ones counted for little. Ethno- graphic studies at the time brought to light in striking terms the mismatch between ofŽcial rhetoric about the beneŽts of youth training and the dismal experience often observed on the ground (see, for example, Hollands, 1990; Stafford, 1991; Bates & Riseborough, 1993).

The system worked well at times of economic buoyancy and expanding labour markets. When the economy contracted, as it did in the late 1970s, and the nature of employment changed as well, young people faced big problems in getting jobs. If they left school they were forced to enter training schemes instead. For large numbers the teens became a period of marking time or ‘warehousing’ until job opportunities became available or adult unemployment beneŽts could be gained (Roberts & Parsell, 1989; Banks et al., 1992).

There are interesting parallels here between the experiences of young people at the end of the 1970s living in the old industrial heartland of Britain and of those in countries like East Germany 10 years later after the fall of communism (Bynner & Silbereisen, 2000). The established structures and networks for ensuring the smooth passage from school to work collapsed as the industries and workplaces to which young people had traditionally gone no longer existed. In such a situation even the strongly corporatist approaches to social problem solving of Germany were put under enormous strain. In Britain, one government initiative after another was thrown at school leavers, directed at keeping them occupied (Rose, 1991). The reality in both countries was a generation of young people, many of whom were ill-equipped to deal with the demands of adult- hood under the conditions of late modernity (Brown, 1996; Furlong & Cartmel, 1997).

As noted earlier, the alternative route to youth training of staying on in education to get qualiŽcations, aided by the introduction in the mid 1980s of a more accessible school leaving examination (GCSE), did not really impact on staying-on rates for a period of 10 years. The upturn did not occur until the beginning of the 1990s, since when it has remained at much the same percentage level ever since. As the comparative Žgures show, Britain still has one of the lowest staying-on rates of all European countries: 30% of young people still leave school at the minimum age of 16 to seek work. By 17, nearly three-Žfths of the cohort is out of the education system (Raffe et al., 1998).

A striking feature of British youth’s headlong rush towards the labour market is their positive evaluation of their own achievements and prospects. This was evident from a study done at the end of the 1980s comparing young people’s transitions in England and West Germany (Bynner & Roberts, 1991). German young people tended to see themselves as not ready for employment and other adult roles until they had completed the critical period of vocational preparation after leaving school. The accelerated transition typiŽed British young people’s experience, with entry into jobs and adult responsibilities the norm, soon after leaving full-time education (including the right to enter into legally binding contracts at 18). This inspired a remarkable degree of conŽdence on the part of young people in their own abilities, coupled with optimism about their prospects. Young Germans’ perspectives were dominated by anticipated difŽculties in obtaining and retaining work. In contrast, British young people— even in areas like Liverpool, where prospects at the time the research was carried out were extremely poor—were still far more conŽdent about their likelihood of getting a job than were the young Germans.

14 J. Bynner

One way of interpreting this ‘false optimism’ is to see it as based on the poor standards for employability set in British schools and what follows them in the labour market. This has been attributed to a ‘low skills equilibrium’ (Finegold & Soskice, 1988), whereby poorly skilled managers produce poorly skilled workers, who later become poorly skilled managers themselves. The lack of a ‘training culture’, and the strong emphasis on ‘learning on the job’, means that it is in the interests of young people always to see themselves as equipped for work. The skills they have are picked up largely fortuitously through the jobs they do, rather than through any formal training they have received.

From Child to Parent

This kind of labour market history is important in understanding the nature of British transitions across all domains of life. The class-bound nature of transition routes (which still prevails) dictates a highly compressed transition compared with most other countries in Europe. In the UK job plus partnership, plus having children at a relatively early age, is the working-class goal (Roberts et al., 1994). There has been a growing tendency in all countries to resist this pressure, postponing commitments while employment prospects remain uncertain. From 1971 to 1996 in Britain, for example, the average age of Žrst birth rose in women from 24 to 29, where it has remained for some time (Utting, 1995; Pullinger & SummerŽeld, 1997).

On the other hand, the remnants of the traditional route to adulthood may be seen in the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in Europe, only surpassed by Canada, New Zealand and the US (SEU, 1999a). Those young people leaving school at 16 without qualiŽcations face increasing difŽculties in getting jobs. Young women, drawn back into the domestic routines of the family, will seek partnership and pregnancy as an escape. Young men will often prolong their adolescence, feeling unable to support a family, and maintaining a street-corner lifestyle, often based on alcohol, drugs and crime (Wallace, 1987).

This polarizing effect is common in most countries, which is the reason why the social exclusion agenda has gained such prominence in all of them (Helve, 1998; Macdonald, 1997b). However, in Britain, the deep-rooted attitudes associ- ated with manual work, and the low value placed on education, manifest social exclusion in starker form for these young people than possibly anywhere else—at least in western Europe.

Other features of the transition to partnership and parenthood, although also stratiŽed by class, have a degree of communality shared with other northern European countries. There is a fairly set pattern of leaving the family home involving one or more attempts at moving out to live with friends (second only to Denmark in Europe), cohabiting with a partner and then marrying (Ainley, 1991; Jones, 1995).

For young (generally middle-class) people going on to higher education in England and Wales, the Žrst of these steps is usually accomplished by choosing a university in another town. Until recently all higher education was free and maintenance grants were available to meet living costs. The 1997 Labour government scrapped these beneŽts for the great bulk of students, introducing a loan system in its place. This may lead to a radical reappraisal of the principle of leaving home to study, lining up English young people more closely with

British Youth Transitions in Comparative Perspective 15

their counterparts in Scotland and in most other European countries, where university study tends to be done in or near the parental home.

The working-class pattern of leaving home more often skips the intermediate stage of living with friends and involves the move straight to cohabitation or partnership in one step. Its casualties are those young people experiencing family breakdown, or those young people growing up in state care, who are forced to Žnd a place of their own to live. The lack of social security beneŽts for some of these young people places them under great personal stress. The pressing problem of homelessness challenges the adequacy of the policy re- sponse to young people’s housing needs again in perhaps a more stark form than in most other countries (Coles, 1995; Jones, 1995).

The Cultural Dimension

Much of the foregoing contextual material for youth transitions may give the impression of homogeneity within the British Isles. In fact there are distinctive cultural and political variations across the boundaries of the countries of the UK, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (Raffe et al., 1998). These underpin the different education and legal systems prevailing, for example, in England and Scotland. This cultural variation is now being given expression in one of the key current political debates: the extent of and form of devolution of governmental powers. A Scottish Parliament has recently been established, and a Welsh Assembly with fewer powers. In Northern Ireland the battle continues over what form the devolved government should ultimately take.

Such political developments parallel the growing sense of different national identities in the British Isles. Young people are more likely to afŽrm a Scottish or Welsh identity than a British identity, although typically other countries deŽne ‘British’ identity as ‘English identity’. In this respect British identity is almost as elusive as ‘European identity’—convenient ofŽcial shorthand, which fails to resonate with local perceptions.

Perhaps more signiŽcant is the rich multicultural and multi-ethnic mix that makes up the British youth population, particularly in the inner cities. Half the ethnic minority population lives in 29 local council areas, and 22 of these are in London. Of the order of 165 second languages are spoken in the homes of children attending London schools. Such cultural diversity contributes to the vibrancy and creativity with which British youth culture is identiŽed (Brake, 1985). It is no accident that Britain, for some time, has had the leading role in Europe, if not the world, in the production of ‘pop music’, and especially in video production. And the lifestyles identiŽed with British youth, from ‘Mods and Rockers’ to ‘Punk’ and ‘Acid House’, have been emulated across the world.

Less attractive cultural manifestations are the vehement nationalism and aggression often associated with such leisure pursuits as football—the working- class male passion—that has given Britain the more unenviable reputation of leading the world in ‘soccer hooliganism’. Crossing the channel demands defence of national pride, however obnoxious the consequences. Yet interest- ingly such periodic outbursts of chauvinism, although sometimes orchestrated by right-wing-extremist political groups, rarely translate among the perpetra- tors—let alone the mass of football supporters—into political convictions at all. What characterizes most young people’s political orientation is apathy towards politics and the political system (Bynner & Ashford, 1994).

16 J. Bynner

In this respect British young people again differ from their continental counterparts, in having less interest in politics (Bynner & Roberts, 1991). The political interest and activity that does exist is strongly related to educational level, with the most educated in the vanguard of popular protests ranging from animal rights to opposing the building of motorways. However, the numbers involved are still very small and engagement with conventional party politics, other than voting (usually the way their parents do), is rare (Banks et al., 1992).

Lying behind this difference is another British ‘blind spot’—young people’s lack of political education and understanding. The previous conservative government and its predecessors found it difŽcult to distinguish between political education and political indoctrination perpetrated by left-wing teachers set on undermining the state. The consequence has been the exclusion of the great majority of children from almost any contact with politics through the curriculum. The pupil parliaments and other forms of political organization and expression common on the continent are rare in Britain. Despite the new Labour government’s commitment to active citizenship and support for the educational system in developing it, there are few signs yet of radical change.

A striking feature of youth culture, which extends from the teens to the late twenties, is the role of the ‘pub’, and drinking generally, in social life. In fact there is evidence that young people who do not drink at all display a degree of social isolation, poor self-esteem and lack of achievement compared with others. Smoking, in contrast, plays almost the opposite role: those with least prospects, or stuck at home with young children, are far more likely to smoke than those with an active social life and good job opportunities (Montgomery & Schoon, 1997). This is where some interpretations of comparative Žgures, relating to smoking and drinking as almost pathological kinds of behaviour, fail to ring true. These kinds of activities play a signiŽcant role in teenage identity formation and social life. They are fundamentally life-style indicators, which may or may not turn into problem behaviours in adulthood (Bynner & Ashford, 1992). Soft drugs may also play a role in this; although as the 1996 British Crime survey shows, only 46% of young people in the age range 16–26 (one of the highest rates in Europe) acknowledge having tried them.

The distinctive features of British—especially working-class—youth culture have been an endless source of fascination to overseas youth researchers. In Learning to Labour: How Working Class Children Get Working Class Jobs, Paul Willis demonstrated the way in which working-class solidarity among young boys was expressed through rejection of the education ethos, in favour of masculine working-class values celebrating unskilled manual work (Willis, 1977). For such boys school was a matter of marking time until they could enter the real world of wages and sexual adventures outside the school gates. Teachers actively reinforced such an identity by determining which boys were worth making an effort with, and which should be written off.

At a time when there was much unskilled employment still available, the system Willis described served the needs of the labour market. When the demand for unskilled manual work declined at the end of the 1970s, this system of social reproduction through education started to dissolve. Ever since, govern- ment policy has been directed at Žnding new means of incorporating such youth into the adult labour market and adult society. However, the fundamental working-class resistance to incorporation, as originally delineated by the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at the University of Birmingham,

British Youth Transitions in Comparative Perspective 17

where Willis’ work was carried out (Hall & Jefferson, 1976), still persists (see, for example, Bates & Riseborough, 1993; Macdonald, 1997a).

The early CCCS work was highly inuential in shaping the way British youth is perceived. However, in addition to being heavily biased towards the life of only one social class, it was criticized, particularly by feminist researchers, as failing to represent the experience of most working-class girls. Unlike working- class boys, whose destiny was to be unskilled manual workers in manufacturing or on building sites, working-class girls had different values and transition histories. Their experience was much more strongly conditioned by, Žrst, aspira- tions towards white-collar work, then, if all else failed, to the local factory, and soon after that to marriage and motherhood (GrifŽn, 1985).

It is ironic that in response to the shifts away from the fairly rigid opportunity structures in which young people found themselves in the 1960s and 1970s, girls have subsequently shown the most advance. Throughout the 1980s in Britain there was a strong equal-opportunities thrust in both national and local govern- ment policy making from which girls were the main beneŽciaries. While many boys without skills or qualiŽcations now languish at the bottom end of the labour market—‘Status Zero Youth’ (Istance et al., 1994; Williamson, 1997), ‘off register’ (Bentley & Gurumuthy, 1999)—lucky to get a job at all, girls are more likely to be ourishing in it.

The expansion of white-collar work and service industry is one of the reasons for this enhancement of female prospects. Girls’ education and achievements have steadily improved; far more stay on beyond 16, and far more go into higher education (Arnot et al., 1999). As the comparative Žgures show, the pattern is common across most countries—perhaps pointing to its globalization elements. The consequence has been continual postponement of marriage and family formation. Over the last 20 years, the mean age of Žrst marriage for British women has risen from 22 to 26 (Utting, 1995).

On the other hand, not all girls have gained the beneŽt of this wider set of opportunities. Like unqualiŽed boys, girls without qualiŽcations have difŽculty Žnding the (white-collar) work that they seek, and frequently exit rapidly from the labour market, usually to have children (Bynner et al., 1997c; Bynner et al., 2000). In this sense we observe an overall rise in the prospects of women—the mean indicators—accompanied by a wider degree of polarization between those at the top of the educational hierarchy and those at the bottom—evidence of a steepening social gradient (Bynner et al., 1997b).

Policy Response

As noted previously, one product of the transformation of labour markets and employment prospects has been a dominant concern in British policy circles with the socialization of young people with poor educational prospects into adult occupational roles. As more and more young people have stayed on in education, and sought jobs in the service and new-technology areas of the economy, those who have failed to achieve this step have become increasingly vulnerable to exclusion from the labour market. A sizeable minority of these young people not only fail to get jobs when they leave school at the minimum age, but also reject opportunities for continuing education or vocational training, which in theory is available to all school leavers.

18 J. Bynner

Such young people not in education, employment or training (NEETs) typi- cally come from disadvantaged family backgrounds, and live in poor conditions on run-down housing estates (Bentley & Gurumurthy, 1999; SEU, 1999b). Many have experienced family breakdown and have ended up in public care: 26% of children aged 14–16 with this background were excluded from school or did not attend on a regular basis (Pearce & Hillman, 1998). The outcomes in early adulthood can often be bleak. Young men’s career histories are marked by casual unskilled work or unemployment coupled with delinquency and crime (Graham & Bowling, 1995). For example, nearly 41% of UK prisoners under the age of 21 have grown up in care. Young women in this situation frequently make their (accelerated) transition to adulthood through early pregnancy and teenage motherhood. In an analysis of data collected from a cohort born in 1970, over 60% in the NEET category had become teenage parents compared with below 5% of the early school leavers who settle successfully into jobs (SEU, 1999b).

The new Labour government’s massive ‘New Deal’ programme, directed at such casualties of the British system, is an attempt to re-engage young people, including teenage mothers, in education or (preferably) employment. There is a sense in which this parallels the typical continental system of support for young people over an extended period of time, to enable them to Žnd the options that will make their adult lives satisfying. In Britain, the deep cultural roots of so much of the identity that young people of this kind still share, question whether such policies can ever be successful without a major cultural shift (Bynner, 1998; Bentley & Oakley, 1999). Such a shift needs to change the attitudes not only of such young people and their families, but also of those who teach them and those who could potentially employ them. In the absence of such a shift, such labels as ‘wasted youth’, ‘marginalized youth’ and ‘status zero’ are going to continue to dominate the policy agenda for some time to come (Pearce & Hillman, 1998; Bentley & Gurumurthy, 1999).

Prospects for Youth Transitions

Recognition of the inappropriateness of past assumptions about young people, and the inadequacy of the policy response towards their situation has led to high prominence for youth issues more generally in current British policy debates. The change of government in 1997 brought with it a new prominence attached to the social exclusion of many young people, and the idea of holistic or ‘joined-up policies’ to deal with its casualties. Policies towards young people are at last beginning to take on board the increasing complexity and difŽculty of the transitions to adulthood that young people have to make (Bynner et al., 1997a; Evans & Furlong, 1997; Furlong & Cartmel, 1997; Bynner, 1999).

The inadequacy of the social support young people currently receive in many areas, especially those who have fallen through the education/employment net, has led to a reappraisal of the institutions relating to them. ‘Care leavers’ and homeless young people have been a central concern, and a new advisory and support service for 13–19 year olds, ConneXions, has been launched (SEU, 1999b). Secondary education policy, particularly, is moving in American directions, whereby staying on at school to 18 would be the norm rather than the exception, and ‘graduation from high school’ would be the goal for everybody (SEU, 1999b). Notably though, in line with British attachment to exibility, and OECD (1999) current prescriptions, there will still be three routes to graduation: general

British Youth Transitions in Comparative Perspective 19

education; high-quality vocational education based in college or the workplace; and studying through the newly established statutory right to time off from early employment.

Concerns about long-term employability still make education leading to qualiŽcations the preferred route to employment, in contrast to the German backing for apprenticeship. Recent policy statements coming from the UK Government’s Social Exclusion Unit (SEU, 1998, 1999a,b, 2000), derived from extensive reviews of British and comparative international evidence on young people’s situation, focus on three areas: truanting from school and school exclusion; teenage pregnancy; and young people not in education, employment or training. The recommendations align much more closely with continental approaches to comprehensive youth policy than was the case in the past. For the Žrst time there is to be ministerial responsibility for young people via a cabinet committee and a new Youth Unit is to be established, charged with collating information and undertaking research (SEU, 2000).

However, one difference persists: the target age group for the new support service, and youth policy more generally, 13–19, is doggedly adhered to as the period in life when youth is still seen by many to begin and end. There is almost a romantic attachment to the accelerated transition of working-class youth into jobs, because it is still implicitly believed that the transition to adulthood for them is primarily about entry to manual work.

It is too early to say how these policies will work out in practice, let alone the impact they are likely to have in the longer term on the way young people in Britain achieve the transition to adulthood. Cultural inheritances, enshrined in values and norms, which still at least instinctively prevail in large sections of the British population, are not going to shift easily. Young people and their families tend to be pragmatic; higher levels of poverty among them, compared with other countries, prompt them to judge things in economic terms. If it makes sense to stay on at school to get qualiŽcations in order to get any kind of job, then young people encouraged by their parents will do it. But if the labour market expands and jobs become available to young people again, then this incentive is likely to go. Although individualized pathways are increasingly becoming the norm, as in most industrialized societies, the structural constraints of class, if not so much as previously gender, are still a major factor in shaping British young people’s careers (Roberts et al., 1994; Furlong & Cartmel, 1997).

In a future scenario predicted to be one of declining employment opportuni- ties and ever-higher demand for qualiŽcations, the prospect of ‘youth jobs’ returning is, however, unlikely (Handy, 1984; Aronowitz & DiFazio, 1994; Rifkin, 1995). This means that education is going to continue to be the dominant experience for an ever-expanding period of people’s lives. It also means a radical re-structuring of career trajectories and life experiences for those who in the past have Žercely rejected it. The alternative is ever-more polarization and marginal- ization: a truly 30–30–40 society, in which the bottom 40% is permanently excluded from mainstream opportunities and lifestyles (Hutton, 1995).

Conclusion

Transition to adulthood has to be seen in socio-historical terms as part of a process through which one set of cultural assumptions needs to be transformed into another. The new generation is in competition with the old over what those

20 J. Bynner

assumptions should be. To understand this tension and Žnd the best means of resolving it demands more rather than less research on youth transitions—albeit broadened to embrace cultural meaning and identity as Cohen & Ainley (2000) suggest in their ‘Third Way’. We need to monitor continually the processes of social change and how they are impacting on young people’s situation, using comparative and longitudinal data to Žnd out what and who are changing and who is staying locked into the now irrelevant arrangements of the past. This is a prerequisite for discovering how adult identity is formed and what the experience of being young in the new millennium means.

Notes

[1] The rationale for Young People in Society is given in Schaffer &Hargreaves (1978), and Žndings brought together in Getting into Life (Beloff, 1986). The rationale for the ESRC 16–19 Initiative is given in Bynner (1987) and the main conclusions of the ‘core’ programme reported in Careers and Identities (Banks et al., 1992).

[2] Scotland’s educational system is quite independent of and quite different in many respects from that prevailing in England and Wales, as is that operating in Northern Ireland. However, post-16 vocational education and training has evolved in rather similar ways to tackle the problem of youth unemployment.

[3] United Nations (1998). [4] International Database, US Census Bureau (1997). www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbenew.html [5] United Nations (1998). [6] Hubert et al. (1998). [7] Time Budget Survey Archive, University of Essex, analysed and reported by Gauthier &

Furstenberg (1999). [8] World Values Survey (1990). [9] World Health Organisation study, King et al. (1997).

[10] Hubert et al. (1998). [11] World Health Organisation Mortality Database 1955–1994. www.ciesin.org/ic/who/

mortalitydatabase.html [12] OECD (1998); Fifth United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice

Systems, 1990–1994.

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