Domesticity, Household Formation and Youth Research

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of existing treatment of the themes of young people, domesticity and household formation. Youth research has long been dominated by two main approaches: the youth cultural studies tradition and the youth transitions tradition. There are numerous accounts within the youth literature concerning the relative strengths and weaknesses of these two approaches, and we do not intend to rehearse those arguments here (see MacDonald, 1998; Cohen and Ainley, 2000; MacDonald etal., 2001; Skelton, 2002 for some recent discussions). However, for our purposes it is important to note that both have operated with clear boundaries around what is considered to be appropriate subject matter. The youth cultural studies tradition has focused on young people’s leisure and subcultural affiliations in the extra-domestic sphere to the virtual exclusion of other spheres of activity, whilst the youth transitions tradition, in principle embracing employment, housing and domestic transitions, has in practice tended to prioritise school to work transitions. The latter approach has, however, begun to take domestic and housing transitions more seriously, and we end this chapter by outlining some of the defining characteristics of existing transitions-influenced work on household formation.