Abstract
Finding employment has been a challenge for young adults in recent years. This is not only due to high unemployment rates, but also because entering working life is more complicated than before. It is no longer just a question of credentials and skills. ‘Employability’ depends on investments in personal capacities: labour market demands in recruitment exceed the capacity of employees’ bodies and minds. This article asks what demands for increasing one’s employability young adults (aged 18–30) experience in relation to their education and working life and how they respond to these ideas, especially to the idea of modifying their minds and bodies—habitus—in order to increase their employability. What demands are they complying with or resisting? How and why are they doing so? The article draws on interviews with 40 young Finnish women and men. The data analysis reveals that employability ideals emphasising affective and bodily capacities or dispositions are not shared by everyone. However, modifying one’s attitude or demeanour seems to be less threatening for young adults than does changing one’s appearance or body. Changes to one’s body are associated with rules and codes dictated from above, whereas changing one’s mindset is usually conceived of as self-development; thus, it is not seen as contrary to authenticity. Identification with a line of work is an important factor in accepting demands on one’s body or demeanour. It should be asked if the importance of authenticity for young adults entering working life should be taken into consideration in governmental youth and employment policies.
Highlights
The analysis in this paper is sensitive to the gendered aspects of ‘employability’ and habitus
We interviewed 40 young adults from the Tampere region (Pirkanmaa) in 2015 and 2016
It seemed that young people-oriented to working life with more traditional attitudes and values than we had anticipated
Summary
Investing in one’s bodily and mental capacities for the sake of working life: is this the current zeitgeist, a shared attitude among policymakers as well as young people? Recent theory and research regarding changes in working life claim that affective and bodily demands have become more pronounced than ever (e.g. Adkins 2016). 132) states that ‘making sense of one’s role and position is not enough; people have to create a specific attitude and perspective (toward the subject position, i.e. a job) in order to tolerate the contextual conditions, maybe even finding pleasure and enjoyment from them’ (see Nikunen 2012) This resonates with the claim made by theorists of affective labour that identification and belonging relates to the joy that identification and networking brings to oneself The idea was to reach young people in different positions in relation to employment and working life. We asked young adults about the external pressures, norms and expectations they anticipated or had experienced in working life This kind of question calls on interviewees to position themselves in relation to the power structures they have experienced. The analysis is based on questions about demands in general, as well as questions about gendered demands in particular: do the interviewees think there are different expectations depending on whether one is a woman or a man? In the conclusion, I consider young people’s compliance and resistance to the ideal of improving oneself in order to be employable
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