Gary Pollock

Explaining differences in sport participation rates among young adults: Evidence from the South Caucasus

This paper presents and discusses evidence about the sport careers of representative samples of 31—37 year olds from the capital city and a comparator region in each of the three South Caucasus countries —Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. This is one of the few surveys to measure sport participation that allows change over time at the aggregate and individual levels to be distinguished. The evidence suggests that many differences in sport participation rates that are commonly attributed to circumstances and experiences after age 16 (higher education, for example) already exist at age 16, and that family cultures are the source of crucial predispositions to participate which have lasting effects. The evidence, from countries that up to 1991 shared the Soviet education and sport systems, also suggests that ethnic/national cultures that predate communism have outlived communism and are now a major explanation of inter-country differences in rates of sport participation in the South Caucasus. Finally, the evidence indicates that sport facilities do indeed make a difference, but only by enabling those who are predisposed to take part in sport.

Work orders: Analysing employment histories using sequence data

The analysis of employment histories has been facilitated recently by advances in survey methodology, statistical processes and computing power. While much work has focused on transitions between states and time spent in one state, the potential of analysing a series of states (i.e. careers) has largely been ignored. A concentration on movement between two states, whilst allowing relevant contextual covariates to be controlled for, often ignores valuable data both prior to and after the episode in question. Analysis of extended sequences of employment states is better able to describe employment trajectories. Furthermore, comparison of sequences permits either allocation to theoretical categories, or the identification of latent groupings using cluster analysis. The resulting typology of careers can then be used in inferentially based analyses. This paper explores sequence analysis using Optimal Matching Analysis (OMA). OMA is explained in relation to one broad substantive issue: the relationship between employment trajectories and gender.

New class divisions in the new market economies: evidence from the careers of young adults in post-Soviet Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia

This paper presents evidence from the biographies of samples totaling 1,215 young adults in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, who all reached age 16 between 1986 and 1992, and whose subsequent life histories coincided with their countries’ transitions from communism. The evidence is used to examine whether new classes are being created in the new market economies and, if so, where the new divisions lie. Economic classes are defined as aggregates with typical and distinctive labour market and work situations. The evidence points to the creation of two such groups, a middle class and a lower class. Corresponding social differences in family and leisure careers are identified. The paper points out that these emergent class formations are different from those in the West, and gives reasons why they are less likely to become politically efficacious than were classes in the Wests more mature market economies during the twentieth century.

Uncertain Futures: Young People in and Out of Employment Since 1940

In Britain, the period between the end of World War II and the mid 1970s witnessed an employment market which was relatively stable. Young people seeking entry into employment managed to do so with relative ease. There was a demand for labour which exceeded the supply. This stability allowed young people to be able to predict, to some extent, what sort of employment they were likely to attain. At one level it meant that the majority of young men could predict that they would become employed on a full-time basis. At another level, young people were even socialised into expecting particular types of work, for example young working class boys expected to get jobs typically done by members of the working class. Since the 1970s, however, the labour market has changed significantly. The extent to which young people can predict their future employment status has declined as the demand for full-time employment has, in many instances, been overtaken by the supply of those looking for it. Many young people today are thus in a more uncertain position. This uncertainty relates to how these young people will fare in the labour market: for young men, that of not becoming an established member of the full-time employed labour force; for young women, the uncertainty relates to changes in forms of labour market participation, but also to a decline, or at least the deferring of leaving the labour market to raise a family.

Individualization and the transition from youth to adulthood

The existence of a life stage of ’youth’ is clearly related to a transitional phase where a persons role in life and their identity becomes ambiguous. The status of childhood has been outgrown and adulthood is still far in the future. Youth occupies a kind of life stage limbo-an indeterminate position where there are a great many possibilities and opportunities but where there are also a great many constraining influences. The dependency of childhood is falling away but full independence is not possible although it can be tantalisingly close. There is a growing awareness of what life can

?Politics are bollocks?: Youth, politics and activism in contemporary Europe?

This introductory article introduces the MYPLACE (Memory, Youth, Political Legacy and Civic Engagement) project, the findings of which are the basis of the articles in this volume. MYPLACE maps the relationship between political heritage, current levels and forms of civic and political engagement of young people in Europe, and their potential receptivity to radical and populist political agendas. In this introductory article, the implications of the projects three-way gaze – to the past, present and future – are explored by addressing three questions that run through contributions to this volume: What is politics, and why do many young people say they hate it? How does the past shape the present and the future? Are young people receptive to populist and radical right political agendas? The article outlines the distinctive case study approach to the project and its integrated mixed method design, detailing the common survey, interview, focus group and ethnographic research instruments employed in the project and the principles followed for the analysis of survey and qualitative research data.

Contingent identities: Updating the transitional discourse

The study of youth transitions has become a key feature of the life-course perspective in social science. Indeed it can be argued that it is amongst youth transition research that many significant theoretical and methodological advances have been made both qualitatively (Hall & Jefferson, 1976), and quantitatively (Blossfeld et al, 1989). The concept of transition is attractive in its simplicity: there is a time-based developmental process through which people flow, albeit in different ways and at different rates. These differences become the areas of interest to social scientists.

Youth leisure careers during post-communist transitions in the South Caucasus.

This paper reports findings from interview surveys with 1215 respondents, split between the capital cities (Yerevan, Baku and Tbilisi) and one non‐capital region (Kotayk, Aran‐Mugan and Shida Kartli) in each of the three South Caucasus countries – Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The respondents, who were drawn from households in larger representative household social surveys, were all born between 1970 and 1976 and were aged 31–37 at the time of the fieldwork in 2007. Their life stage transitions from childhood to adulthood had roughly coincided with their countries’ transitions from communism to post‐communism. Data was collected on the samples’ participation in selected leisure activities from age 16 to 30. Similar data was collected on the samples’ careers in education, the labour market, housing and family relationships. This information enables us to identify typical leisure careers and how their development was affected by events in other life domains, all in the context of the macro‐changes that were in process in each of the research locations. The evidence enables both personal leisure careers and aggregate leisure trends in different socio‐demographic groups to be identified This shows that changes in leisure behaviour between age 16 and 30 were neither widening nor narrowing the differences between the leisure of males and females, or those who married and became parents on the one hand, then, on the other, those who were still single and childless at age 30. In contrast, differences by place, and by social class, grew progressively wider, thus raising the social costs of geographical and social mobility. Changes in leisure behaviour between age 16 and 30 were separating young adults into those who participated in little, if any, structured out‐of‐home leisure, whose main leisure spending, if any, was on alcohol and tobacco (typically consumed in homes and neighbourhoods), and those whose leisure was characterised by relatively high and sustained participation in sport, consumption of high culture, and going out to bars, cafes, cinema, discos, etc.

Young adults' family and housing life-stage transitions during post-communist transition in the South Caucasus

This paper reports evidence from surveys in 2007 which gathered life-history information since age 16 from samples totalling 1215 31–37-year-olds in the capital cities and regional centres of the three South Caucasus countries – Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Following this quantitative survey in which all questions were closed, there were 20 in-depth follow-up interviews with between four and eight respondents per country. The evidence shows that there had been just one dominant and by implication normative family formation sequence, which was to marry, to become a parent (which usually followed marriage very quickly), and then to remain married. It is argued that the dominant family formation sequence was being held in place partly by the older generations control of housing, and, indeed, the young adults’ long-term chances of obtaining their own places. However, while in one sense a constraint, prolonged co-residence with the older generation was also a rational choice of young adults who needed family assistance in child-rearing, and in contexts where the viability of households depended on maintaining multiple income streams. Thus, having survived and, in some ways, having been consolidated during communism, traditional family patterns were proving resilient in the South Caucasus in the post-communist age.

Erratum to: The Current Evidence Base and Future Needs in Improving Children’s Well-Being Across Europe: is There a Case for a Comparative Longitudinal Survey? (Child Indicators Research, (2016), 9, 2, (371-388), 10.1007/s12187-015-9323-5)

There has been a growing interest among academics, policy makers and practitioners in the subjective well-being of children and young people (CYP). The recognition of CYP’s rights to having a good childhood and good future life chances, coupled with the injunction from the New Sociology of Childhood to consult with CYP as active agents have also resulted in an increasing interest in the use of well-being as a key concept in policy programmes in many countries. In recent years, child well-being has become a priority for the European political agenda. However, the main challenge for the European Union (EU) is to develop the best policies and approaches to effectively improve the well-being of children and young people using the most robust and suitable sources of data. This article identifies research gaps on children and young people’s subjective well-being and discusses the policy relevance of longitudinal survey in the context of the EU strategy for CYP. It is argued that a longitudinal survey would fulfil research gaps and provide invaluable data for the European Union and its member states for monitoring and evaluation of existing policies on children and young people’s well-being and developing future polices supported by robust data.