ABSTRACT
In the post-recession United Kingdom, conditions that can be linked to the policies of austerity followed by the Coalition government up to 2015 and the Conservative government from May 2015 mean that many young people's lives are characterised by hardship and uncertainty. With educational qualifications being a strong determinant of young people's distribution across zones, it is clear that human capital offers some protection from liminality and marginalisation. As young people are in a state of transition, over time people would expect to find movement from the zones of liminality and marginality towards more stable employment positions and see people successfully secure permanent jobs. While some of the most influential names in sociology have argued that increased insecurity of labour has to be regarded as one of the core components of late modernity, others have argued that theory is running ahead of empirical evidence.
