Youth Unemployment and Devolution: Civil Society and Street Level Responses

Youth unemployment and work insecurity have been prevailing issues for governments across Western Europe since the 2008 financial crisis. These issues have intensified after Brexit and the pandemic, with young people consistently overrepresented in the gig economy and all forms of work insecurity.

Against a backdrop of increasingly mixed economies of welfare in the UK’s liberal welfare regime and work first policy narrative, this book explores civil society responses to youth unemployment in England, Scotland and Wales. Using original, empirical research to challenge the privileging of methodological nationalism in the study of welfare regimes, it analyses the scale and nature of policy and civil society responses to youth unemployment and work insecurity between three nations of the UK from the perspectives of policy makers, strategic thinkers and case workers delivering to young people on the ground.

Sioned Pearce is Lecturer in Social Policy at the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University.