Youth, Jobs, and the Future

While overall unemployment has declined, the unemployment rate remains nearly twice as high for young people 16 to 19 years of age and nearly three times as high for those aged 20 to 24. Rates of unemployment and underemployment are nearly two to three times higher for Black and Latino youth. In Youth, Jobs, and the Future, Lynn S. Chancer, Martín Sánchez-Jankowski, and Christine Trost have gathered a cast of well-known interdisciplinary scholars to confront the persistent issues of youth unemployment and worsening socio-economic precarity in the United States. The book explores structural and cultural causes of youth unemployment, their ramifications for both native and immigrant youth, and how middle- and working-class youth across diverse races and ethnicities are affected within and outside the legal economy. A needed contribution, this book locates solutions to youth unemployment in economic and political changes as well as changes in cultural attitudes.

Lynn S. Chancer is Professor of Sociology at Hunter College and the Executive Officer of the Sociology Department at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is the author or co-editor of five volumes including Sadomasochism in Everyday Life (Rutgers University Press, 1992), Reconcilable Differences: Confronting Beauty, Pornography and the Future of Feminism (University of California Press, 1998), High-Profile Crimes: When Legal Cases Become Social Causes (University of Chicago Press, 2005), and (with Beverly Watkins), Gender, Race and Class: An Overview (Blackwell, 2005). Martín Sánchez-Jankowski is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues at the University of California, Berkeley. His areas of research are sociology of poverty, social violence, ethnic and racial relations and youth. He is the author of five books and co-editor of two. Christine Trost is Associate Director of the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues at the University of California at Berkeley. Trained as a political scientist (PhD Berkeley), she has written journal articles and edited volumes on topics related to political ethics, campaign practices, youth civic and political engagement, and the rise of the Tea Party.

Introduction Lynn Chancer, Martín Sánchez-Jankowski and Christine Trost
PART ONE: SETTING THE STAGE: TRENDS AND MACROCONTEXTS
1. The Employment Patterns of Young Adults, 1989-2014 Mike Hout
2. Precarious Work and Young Workers in the U.S. Arne Kalleberg
PART TWO: PRIVILEGE AND DISADVANTAGE IN THE YOUTH LABOR MARKET
3. Take this Job and Love It? The Millennial Work Ethic and the Politics of Getting Back to Work Jamie K. McCallum
4. Real Jobs and Redshirting: Job Seeking Strategies for College-Educated Youth Maria Kefalas and Patrick Carr
5. Part-time Employment and Aesthetic Labor among Middle-Class Youth Yasemin Besen-Cassino
PART THREE: SOCIOECONOMIC PRECARITY AND YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
6. The Children of Low-status Immigrants and Youth Unemployment in the U.S. and Western Europe Richard Alba and Nancy Foner
7. Youth Unemployment and the Illicit Economy Martín Sánchez-Jankowski
8. Effects of Incarceration on Labor Market Outcomes among Young Adults David J. Harding, Anh P. Nguyen, Jeffrey D. Morenoff, Shawn D. Bushway
PART FOUR: WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
9. Transforming High School and Addressing the Challenge of America's Competitiveness Stanley Litow and Grace Suh
10. Time's Up! Shorter Hours, Public Policy, and Time Flexibility as an Antidote to Youth Unemployment Katherine Eva Maich, Jamie K. McCallum, Ari Grant-Sasson
11. Youth Prospects and the Case for a Universal Basic Income Sarah Reibstein and Andy Stern
12. Jobs for Young Americans: The Enduring Case for Full Employment Robert Kuttner
Index