‘Planning’, ‘Searching’ and ‘Drifting’: Labour market transitions in a disadvantaged neighbourhood in a rich city in Scotland

Abstract

This paper draws on desk-based and empirical research which examined experiences of young people in Pilton, a disadvantaged neighbourhood in Edinburgh, as they entered the labour market. At odds with contemporary discourses that suggest the existence of a ‘culture of worklessness’, finding and maintaining employment was regarded by almost all the young people in this study as an important marker of adult identity and self-efficacy. Indeed, young people expressed stoical views about their determination to find stable, long-term work. Nonetheless, structural inequalities presented significant barriers to achieving and maintaining long-term, stable employment, with support services being regarded by young people and professionals alike as inadequate. However, young people tended to believe that they were personally responsible for lack of success in the labour market context and this can harm their well-being at a crucial period of transition. This research challenges discourses that characterise and pathologise disadvantaged young people as ‘work shy’ and indicates that, instead, many young people are required to have extraordinary resilience as they persevere to try to gain and maintain stable paid employment. The concept of ‘social exclusion’ is rejected in describing these young people's contexts; they are not ‘outside’ society and in fact they have rich and varied social experiences. However, they are severely disadvantaged by structural inequalities within the labour market.