Drug use and early job insecurity

Abstract

This chapter explores the association between drug use, early job insecurity and periods of high youth unemployment using quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative analysis shows how young people’s behaviour and attitudes towards drugs have changed as youth unemployment rates have increased over the past decade. The qualitative analysis, drawing on data referring to a lengthier period, explores how drug use and early job insecurity have affected young people’s life courses and labour market transitions. Our contribution provides insights that can inform policy towards young people at risk of social exclusion as a result of their involvement with drugs. Conceptually, we focus on the significance of critical moments understood at both the societal and individual levels, looking at how the environment and the role of ‘significant others’ in the lives of these vulnerable young people affect their trajectories in positive and negative ways. The 2008 international economic crisis hit young people particularly hard (Bell and Blanchflower, 2011; O’Reilly et al., 2017). In general, unemployment and increased job insecurity disproportionately affected youth (McQuaid, 2017; O’Reilly et al., 2018). However, the impact of the economic crisis varied greatly across Europe in terms of young people’s probability of making a successful transition from school to employment (Karamessini et al., 2016). The transition to adulthood is difficult for many young people. Moreover, the nature of this transition has changed profoundly. Changing demands for skills and the growth of precarious and flexible forms of employment have contributed to making transitions to adulthood more complex and individualized (Blossfeld et al., 2006). Shildrick and MacDonald (2007) argue that to understand how these transitions from school to work have become increasingly uncertain and unstructured requires a broader and