Striding on a Winding Road: Young People’s Transitions from Education to Work in Bulgaria

Abstract

The transition from education to work in the global economy is no longer a straightforward one-time move for young people. In Bulgaria, this change started with the transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy in the 1990s and was accompanied by the arrival of high rates of early school leaving, youth unemployment, and a growing group of disengaged youths (NEETs). The European initiatives in support of youth labour market integration are translated locally, with a narrow focus on “employability” while neglecting the many educational, training, and social needs of young people. The analysis in this paper is informed by the theoretical framework of life course research. It starts with an elaboration of the recontextualisation of EU policies such as the Youth Guarantee in the local realities of socioeconomic structures using Eurostat and national data. Second, we present 4 case studies (selected out of a total of 42 in-depth interviews) of young adults aged 18–30 in order to highlight the ways in which young people’s individual agency filters and influences the institutional policies and practices regulating youth social integration. Our qualitative analysis reveals the multiplicity and diversity of youth journeys into work through the institutions and social structures and the inadequacy of the applied policy measures.

Bringing social biography to life course studies: Agency and reflexivity in education-to-work transitions in young adults’ biographies

“…Apart from being sometimes wrongly used as a descriptive concept related to youth, the transition to adulthood has been the most studied of various life course transitions (see e.g. Kovacheva and Hristozova 2022). I agree with the standpoint that the transition from education to employment is central to the transition to adulthood (Heinz 2009a;Roberts 2018).…”

How Europe’s Former Communist States Have Added More Variety without Extending the Range of Variation in the Continent’s Education-to-Work Transitions

“…An overall outcome is that whether they follow an academic or any other route, and at whichever age and level they exit for the labour market, many young Europeans face "a long winding road" (Kovacheva and Hristozova, 2022), changing jobs many times before finding one in which they wish and are able to settle. All types and levels of education have become less reliable in terms of the kinds of employment to which they lead.…”

The Dual Nature of Opportunity Structures Amid the Global Pandemic

“…Public discourses about the transformations of education and employment widely disseminated during the period of emergency; however, individuals enact their own construal of social conditions and their own understanding of public discourses amid the social relations that they establish with other people in their situation, their peer groups, their families and the street-level officers of employment and education services. Opportunity structures are enacted in the interactions between professionals and young adults and the ambitious goals of education, training and lifelong learning policies can be achieved only when they are meaningful for the people involved in their implementation-a common finding of many of the papers included in the Special Issue [3][4][5][6].…”

“…The big picture should not conceal the specific connections between migration and inequality. Two of the articles in the Special Issue [5,10] observe that in origin countries as different as Bulgaria and Morocco, certain groups of youth imagine what migration could bring to them. Remarkably, besides cultural readings of migration and variable social bonds with their families, in both cases, the youth elaborate (or at least sketch) migration projects depending on their experience of the social inequalities that affect their families and their own perspectives.…”

“…The Special Issue focuses on the interface between public policies and the experience of young people in Bulgaria, Finland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Morocco and the United Kingdom. On the one hand, the articles discuss institutional aspects such as education policies [3][4][5], regulation of migration [6], or programs that foster international mobility and inclusion of diverse students in higher education institutions [7,8], building upon desk research and statistical and other quantitative analyses. On the other hand, some contributions draw on hermeneutical [9], ethnographical [10], narrative [11], and other qualitative methods to spell out the experiences of these young people in their life transitions.…”