Gaps and misalignments in

youth policies: A comparative

perspective
Johanna Wyn
Youth Research Centre
The University of Melbourne
The importance of the
1980s
 The importance of the
1980s
 Shifts in global and local proceses,
relationships and patterns brought
about significant social change to all
aspects of society:
 Shift from “Modernity” to “Late
Modernity” by the 1980s.
 Implications for “ways of being”
 In Australia in the 1980s –
1990s
 Collapse of the youth labour market
 More girls than boys completing secondary
school
 Women entering labour market
 Delaying marriage and childbearing
 New economies – decline of manufacturing
and emergence of service sector
 Global competition for labour and labour-
market de-regulation
 When they were aged 20
Baby Boomers Gen X
in 1976 in 2001
% of population 17 14
No religion % 14 23
In education % Men: 16 Men: 23
Women: 9 Women: 24
Live with parents % 21 30

First birth to 10 48
women 30 yrs + %

Labour force Men: 92 Men: 87

participation % Women: 57 Women: 75
Median age at first Men: 24 Men: 29
 Education and labour market
policies in Australia in 1990s
 Education a tool for economic
development (OECD)
 Higher levels of education for a ‘knowledge
economy’
 Matching skills and attitudes with the economy

 Labour markets deregulated

 Workers benefits and rights reduced
 Precarious, short-term work
 Post-1970 Generation in
Australia (Gens X and Y)
 First generations to enter mass higher education
 Casualised labour market – precarious employment
 Deregulation of labour market in 1990s
 Education more important & yet increasingly marginal
 Credentialism, workplace learning, cyberspace
 Loose link between education and employment
 Widening gap between high-skill and low-skill jobs
(disappearing middle)
New stages of the life course
are being invented:

●
Post-adolescence
●
Over-aged young adults
●
Generation on hold
●
Extended transitions
●
Generation X, Y, (Z?)
●
Arrested Adulthood
 A new adulthood?
 Vanguard attitudes signalling shifts in attitudes
that are not simply age effects
 Enduring changes in approaches to:
 Education: continuing, pragmatic, development
 Employment: precarious, new meanings of career,
‘new’ economies
 Life: balance, personal responsibility, project of the
self
 Adulthood arrived at earlier, incrementally
Areas you wish were better
1998 aged 25

Health and fitness

Personal relationships
Work/career
Educational attainments
 Gender & class: very
satisfied with situation
50
aged 27 in 2000
45
40
35
30 male low ses
25 female low s
20 male high se
15 female high s
10
5
0
health work
 The ‘project of the self’ is
detrimental to wellbeing
 Keeping options open for an uncertain future
(stress)
 Managing multiple commitments in the

present (pressure)
 Young people experience a sense of personal

failure for the outcome of decisions where

they have very little real choice (anxiety)
 Young Australians and mental health 2008
•Young people aged 20-24 years identified depression
as the issue of most importance to young people
(34.2%)

•25% of young people experience a mental disorder

•Depression, anxiety and substance use
disorders are the most common mental
disorders (75%), which typically occur
during adolescence and early adulthood
•Young people who had not completed secondary
school had a higher prevalence of mental disorder
(35%) than those who had completed secondary school
(25%)
•Young people who were not employed and not in the
labour force were also more likely to suffer a mental
disorder than other young people
The Making of a Generation:
Young Adults
in Canada and Australia

Lesley Andres & Johanna Wyn

Toronto University Press, 2010

 Longitudinal panel studies
 Paths of Life’s Way  Topics
 British Columbia, Canada  Education
 Sample of 2000 left school  Work
in 1989
 Ongoing
 Health/wellbeing
 Family
 Life-Patterns
 Relationships
 Victoria, Australia
 Leisure
 Sample of 2000 left school
in 1991  Methods
 Ongoing  Surveys
 New cohort who left school
in 2006  Interviews with sub-set
 Participatory
 Aims in life in the early
1990s
 Australians and Canadians shared
almost identical aims at age 18:
 a modest level of affluence, job and life
security, marriage/partnership, children,
caring for their parents
 Australians more oriented to the labour
market and more interested in travel
 Realities
 In both countries ‘achieving a
balance’ became a dominant theme
over time
 The long road to employment
 Work = Stress
 Feeling that personal relationships
suffered because of work demands
Marital status five years out of high school: Canada 1993
Females Males
No PS% Non Univ% Uni% No PS% Non Univ% Univ%

single 15 52 80 69 78 72
married 85 46 21 25 22 15
children 31 12 1 25 2 0

Marital status five years out of high school: Australia 1996

Females Males

No PS% Non Univ% Univ% No PS% Non Univ% Univ%

single 91 92 94 97 99 94

married 9 8 6 3 1 2

children 1 2 1 3 0 0
Marital & parental status 15 years out of high school: Canada 2003 age 33

Females Males
No PS% Non Univ% Uni% No PS% Non Univ% Univ%

single 0 14 23 29 33 22

married 82 67 63 57 56 66

children 83 64 47 48 48 46

Marital & parental status 12 years out of high school: Australia 2004 age 30

Females Males

No PS% Non Univ% Univ% No PS% Non Univ% Univ%

single 20 34 25 33 24 37

married 55 47 52 44 49 40

children 27 30 24 15 14 13
 Comparing Australians’ and
Canadians’ Health
 Australians in 2002 aged 28
 Physical health
 Very healthy: 18% Unhealthy: 13%
 Mental Health
 Very healthy: 19% Unhealthy: 15%

 Canadians in 1998 aged 28

 Physical health
 Very healthy: 37% Unhealthy: 8%
 Mental Health
 Very healthy: 32% Unhealthy: 9%
 Gaps and misalignments
 Young people were positioned as human capital
 Economic goals were emphasised over social goals
 Australia’s labour market deregulation was more
extreme than Canada’s
 The generational education gap was greater in
Australia than in Canada
 Mental health problems
 Deferring / jeopardising the establishment of families
 Conclusion

Canada and Australia followed different strategies in

achieving their common goals for economic reform
in the 1990s
The impact is revealed in the comparison of the life
patterns of young adults: education and labour
market policies have direct impacts on health and
wellbeing, but are rarely recognised
Thank you