Young People and Employment in the South West

Abstract

From a comprehensive survey of over 1200 17 and 18 year olds in Devon and Cornwall, the paper concentrates on the economic position of young people. Important differences were found between the young people in urban and rural areas. Of interest here is the role played by them in the local economy. The rural South West is shown to be characterized by a prevalence of self-employment and small businesses. Furthermore, factors such as a shortage of housing and travelling difficulties leads to different kinds of interdependence between parents and children in rural areas from those found in urban areas. Although in rural areas a dependence of young people upon the family was found, this was balanced by the dependence of the family on them in the sense of a young person’s labour often being a crucial part of the family business. This interdependence is intensified in many rural businesses where there is often no geographical separation of home and workplace. The far South West experiences some of the highest unemployment and the lowest wages in the UK and yet young people in rural areas were found to have developed coping strategies manifested in both formal and informal work practices, casualization and self-employment. The ‘pluriactivity’ found shows young people socialized into long hours, hard work and poor rewards. It is clear from the results that young people are not simply passively dependent upon the household nor that the flow of resources goes simply from parents to children. Small scale rural enterprises in which young people are employed or seek to be employed still show a marked gender division of tasks. Further, it was difficult in many instances to make a clear distinction between work and non-work although again distinct gender differences are visible.