Turning thirty: Youth transition processes in 21st century Argentina

Abstract

This paper contributes to discussion of the concept of youth as a transition process from education to employment through an empirical analysis of material gathered in Argentina during the post-neoliberal period. Based on the argument that youth studies should incorporate the historical context and economic policies of the moment studied, the paper has been developed on the basis of quantitative data from standardised surveys and 30 biographical interviews carried out in 2013 with people who graduated from high school in 1999. The interviews covered the whole process of transition from high school education to the workforce in one cohort of young people at the end of one of Argentina’s most important crises (in 2001) and who moved into adulthood within an economic framework very different from the neoliberal model.