ABSTRACT
In this chapter, which focuses on Britain, we explore the marginality of working-class young men in a service-dominated economy where youth unemployment rates are high. We trace the historical continuities in the construction of these young men as dangerous and out of control in the public arena: attributes that did not necessarily disqualify them from employment in manufacturing jobs, where the jobs themselves were often dangerous or dependent on embodied attributes associated with masculinity such as strength and determination. However, as interactive service occupations based on customer contacts have become increasingly numerous, their disadvantage correspondingly became greater as the acceptable deferential performance associated with many servicing jobs at the bottom end of the labour market often ruled out working-class young men as potential employees. Nevertheless young men do work in the service sector in poorly-paid and often low status jobs in, for example, retail or in call centres, but for too many working-class young men unemployment is more common.
