Young, crisis and precariousness: a relationship that is too long and too tight

Abstract

In recent decades, transformations have taken place in the world of work, both locally and globally, which have had a profound impact on the lives of young people and on the relationship they establish with employment. This article will attempt to identify different processes of precariousness that affect the working conditions of young people in Spain. We will address the effects of the recent crisis on youth employment, the precariousness as a norm installed also in the new forms of digital age employment, labour imperatives, such as employability and entrepreneurship, and deep labour inequalities. The consequences that these work situations are having on the construction of subjectivities and youth biographies will be the object of reflection, from a critical point of view, but it will also be a question of understanding how young people are re-signifying work and giving meaning to it in a context of uncertainty and insecurity that does not favour them at all.