CONSOLIDATING AN INDUSTRY AND PROLONGING DEPENDENCY: PROFESSIONALS,POLICIES AND YOUNG PEOPLE

This article examines the nexus between professionalism and the representation of social problems among some young people. It considers how policy and professional interventions involve problem-setting as well as problem-solving activities. A central argument is that a primary effect of both professional activities and of major changes to the youth labour market has been an extension of dependency for many young people. No matter how young people experience the disappearance of the youth labour market, the fact remains: most young people have been permanently excluded from full-time work. As we reach the close of the twentieth century and without essentialising ‘youth’ it seems that more and more young people are unable to live autonomous lives that resemble adulthood until their mid-twenties. For some young people staying on in education, remaining out of the full-time labour market until their mid-twenties may not mark a dramatic shift in their experiences, but for other young people such trends have a dramatic impact on their life-worlds.     

“Strivers”, “doers”, and “seekers”: Social workers and their commitment to the job

Amid considerable interest in the experiences of early career professionals in social work in England and internationally, and the relationship between these and retention and progression, this article reports on the findings of one element of a larger evaluation. It reports the findings and analysis of interviews with 42 relative newcomers to social work, some 3 years following qualification, focusing on their current career orientations, and how these appear to affect their future intentions. We identified three distinct groups, designated as “strivers,” “doers,” and “seekers.” Each of these groups demonstrated a different kind and level of commitment to their social work role and identity: Strivers were oriented towards career progression and taking on senior roles; doers were committed practitioners who saw themselves as continuing in front line service delivery for the foreseeable future; and seekers, although still committed to social work in principle, tended to be more unsure about their future place in the profession. This typology appears to be reasonably robust on the basis of our investigation and has implications for career planning and supervision of social work professionals, especially at the early stages of their careers.     

POLICY PARADOXES: THE DISEMPOWERMENT OF YOUNG PEOPLE UNDER THE LABOR GOVERNMENT, 1983–91

This paper explores the restructuring of the experience of young people's lives. It examines Federal Labor Government youth and education policy apparently developed as a response to the high levels of youth unemployment in place since 1976–77. It argues that these policies have dramatically altered the experience of being young by creating greater dependence and further disempowerment. It argues that young people have become the objects of punitive exercises that deny them their basic rights, disenfranchise them and extend the socially constructed features of adolescence into early ‘adulthood’.     

Pension reform in the Baltic States: Convergence with “Europe” or with “the world”?

Abstract The Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – join the European Union in 2004. This paper examines pension reform in the three countries over the past decade in the light of the “European social model” and the “World Bank model”. Part one seeks to define these two models. It shows how the former emphasizes income adequacy and solidarity while the latter stresses fiscal sustainability, savings and economic growth. Part two looks at reforms made and proposed. Initial reforms involved raising the retirement age and relating benefits more closely to earnings and service. This resulted in the establishment of pension systems similar to those in many European countries. Subsequent reforms involved attempts to shift from a publicly financed, purely “pay‐as‐you‐go” system to one based upon “funding” and private, individual accounts. Such systems have been promoted by the World Bank. The appropriateness of this approach – its high transition costs, potentially high administration costs, and longer‐term implications for the relative income status of retired people – is questioned. Part three draws conclusions. In the short and medium term, policymaker should safeguard income adequacy rather than seek the doubtful advantages of funding – in other words, look more to “Europe” than to “the world”.