ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights some of the main perspectives of the research on youth, generations, and consumption. It focuses on the development of young people's position in Western consumer societies and also in the research on youth and consumption. The chapter analyzes the ever-influential generational approach to the research on consumption and youth, and focuses on the way generational values and attitudes that are seen as passing on to the next generation. It discusses the new and emerging research perspectives and methods in the studies of young people and consumption. The psycho-social and developmental perspectives particularly emphasize the connection between young people's mental and physical development and economic behavior in the transition to adulthood. In the Western world, the key period in the formation of youth consumption was the decades after the World War II, the 1950s and 1960s, a period of a rapid economic growth and cultural change.
