Change and Continuity in the Youth Labour Market: a Critical Review of Structural Explanations of Youth Unemployment¹

Abstract

An orthodoxy of pessimism dominates the current debate about youth unemployment. The massive increase in youth unemployment since the early 1970s, according to many commentators, results from factors over and above the recessionary influences which caused adult unemployment to rise. Even if adult unemployment were to fall to the levels of the 1960s, it is argued, youth unemployment would remain high. This is the ‘structural explanation’ of youth unemployment.