Selling Our Youth: Graduate Stories of Class, Gender and Work in Challenging Times
About this ebook
The authors draw upon the landmark Paired Peers research project – an empirical longitudinal study of recent graduates in England – to explore their experiences of the contemporary globalized labour market. It demonstrates how many of these young, well qualified adults struggle to achieve stable and rewarding employment in the context of the overstocked graduate supply, precarious work and exploitative working conditions. Government policies of austerity, which were in place when these young people graduated in 2013, meant this generation faced the challenges of a lower wage economy and a housing crisis. The subsequent arrival of Covid-19 and its disastrous impacts on the local and global economy are making these challenges even tougher. The authors further explore the way differences of class and gender impact upon graduate trajectories.
About the author
Harriet Bradley is Professor Emerita at Bristol and West of England Universities and Fellow of the Academy of Social Science.
Richard Waller is Professor of Education and Social Justice at the University of the West of England, Bristol, where he has worked since 1995.
Laura Bentley is an ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Social Policy at the University of Birmingham. She is the principal investigator for the project Still Jenny from the Block? Working-class women, higher education and social mobility in the COVID context.
