Becoming Adult: The Persisting Importance of Class and Gender

(2010) - Ingrid Schoon

Journal: Gender Inequalities in the 21st Century
Link:: http://www.elgaronline.com/view/9781848444386.00008.xml
DOI:: 10.4337/9781849805568.00008
Links::
Tags:: #paper #NCDS #Gender #SocialClass #Transition #school-to-work
Cite Key:: [@Schoon2010]

Abstract

This chapter investigates changes in gender differences of young people’s educational and occupational aspirations and differences in the assumption of work and family related adult roles. It has been argued that since the 1970s transitions into adulthood have become destandardised and more individualised, i.e. more variable and protracted, less norm-conforming and collectively patterned, and more strongly influenced by individual decision making and choice (Beck, 1992; Giddens, 1991). Much of the current debate regarding the destandardisation of the life course reflects on-going speculations about the way in which transitions are changing – yet there is still a lack of systematic empirical evidence about how the life course has changed, if at all – and how it has differentiated across social groups (Elder & Shanahan, 2007; Macmillan, 2005), with one of the critical research gaps concerning changes in women’s transitions and careers.

Notes

“We have observed raised aspirations regarding education and employment, especially among girls and also among relative disadvantaged young people, extended participation in further education and training, as well as women’s increasing participation in, and attachment to the labour market even after childbirth” (Schoon, 2010, p. 16)