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Conclusion: Young People in the Work Society

This chapter summarises the empirical findings of the book and explores the theoretical consequences for studies of youth, work and social inequality. The key argument is that the relationship between youth and work has been transformed by post-Fordism, and that young people have been re-positioned as the ideal post-Fordist subjects through their engagement with the contemporary labour force. In this sense, work has become a site for the production of youth as such – not merely an employment market that young people must ‘transition’ into, but a set of biopolitical practices that constitute the basic conditions for youth identity. In the process, young people’s definitions of themselves have become intertwined with their capacity to produce value at work. Class does not manifest merely in the biographical inequalities that structure youth transitions, or in struggles for status and symbolic value. Instead, class inequalities are manifested in the practices, ethics and forms of selfhood that are mobilised when young people cultivate themselves as subjects of value to the labour force. The book therefore offers a paradigm for understanding the formation of young people as workers, and the production of unique forms of classed identity manifested in the post-Fordist work ethic.