Time horizons in young people´s career narratives – strategies, temporal orientations and imagined parallel futures negotiated in local settings

Abstract

ABSTRACT Substantial research has shown that changes in contemporary western societies have prolonged transitions from youth to adulthood and altered the conditions and timing of transitions in education, work and family formation. Thus, contemporary society is creating new temporal conditions with important implications for social institutions, organisation of education, work arrangements, and individual career choices. The presented study explores temporal dimensions of career choices and transitions in this context from perspectives of young people in a small town in Sweden. Three specific temporal questions are addressed: How are time horizons constructed in young peoples´ career narratives; in what ways do individual temporal strategies and orientations towards the past, present and future interact with opportunity structures and socio-geographic space; and how does locality influence these temporal constructions and interactions? There are three main conclusions. First, young people in the focal setting still maintained and constructed career strategies and life goals based on an ideal of linearity and long-term perspectives. Secondly, individual temporal orientations are intertwined with interpretations of local conditions, producing place-based temporalities. Thirdly, imagined parallel futures form a future planning horizon that incorporates multiple temporalities simultaneously.