ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the impact restructuring has had on young Geordies' cultures and identities in work, the home and in the consumption sphere. The economic and industrial history of Tyneside is critical to any understanding of young adults' cultures and transitions. The Tyneside economy of the 1990s is almost unrecognisable in light of this earlier history. The so-called 'Thatcherite Revolution' decimated traditional forms of employment, with 38 per cent of the region's total manufacturing jobs going between 1978 and 1984. Young adults' changed economic prospects will have an important bearing on their attitudes and orientations to work and education, levels of income and spending, and living arrangements and transitions out of the family household. Furthermore, all of these factors impact upon both the patterns of, and opportunities for, consumption and leisure. The chapter discusses some of the main implications of the changing economic, domestic and cultural life-world of young adults in the region.
