Treading water? The roles and possibilities of ‘adversity capital’ in preparing young people for precarity

Abstract

The impact of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2007-8 on young people both seeking and in work was immediate and typically disproportionate to older age groups (OECD 2010). The impact of precarious work, and particularly unemployment, on young people’s mental health and well-being is widely documented-including depression, loss of hope, isolation and financial insecurity, among others (Hillman and McMillan 2005). These impacts were sometimes ironically compounded and intensified by neo-Liberal economic and political responses to the GFC (Walsh 2016). For David Harvey (2005, p.2).