ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that young adults’ new social condition, the limbo that many experience between completing compulsory education and becoming established in employment, tends to widen social class disparities in life-styles, and that unemployment deepens traditional gender divisions. Protracted transitions into the labour market have become the norm, and the following passages consider the implications for leisure of young adults’ various experiences during the years immediately following their compulsory education. The chapter also shows that whether 16-year-olds continue in education, obtain jobs, proceed through the Youth Training Scheme (YTS), or become unemployed makes a considerable difference to their leisure opportunities and behaviour. The longer-term leisure-effects of having been on the YTS were more akin to those of unemployment than post-compulsory education. The only instances of other respondents deriving more companionship from any source were the employed’s greater likelihood of having opposite-sexed boy-friends or girl-friends, and the unemployed’s greater involvement with their families.
