Inequality Restructured: A Regional Comparison of the Occupational Position of Young People Before and After the Great Recession of 2008

Abstract

Developments in the youth labour market are regularly framed as successful by the UK Government who argue that young people have a growing and vibrant jobs market. Sociological discourse has tended to focus on the growth in precarious work and the substantial decrease in the availability of employment for young people. Far less attention has been paid to the parallel issue of whether these changes are associated with shifts in occupational level. Yet occupational position remains one of the most powerful general indicators of life chances, social and material reward and status available. To examine how the occupational position of young people in the UK may have altered, this article focusses on two periods either side of the Great Recession (2005-7 and 2015-17). We find there has been a reduction in regional inequality in the level of jobs young men and women are doing. For young men, there has been a disproportionate loss of less advantaged occupations, raising the average occupational position in a number of regions. For women, the opposite trend has occurred; there has been a disproportionate loss of more advantaged occupations, leading to a general drop in the average advantage level.