Youth Unemployment and Devolution

Youth unemployment and work insecurity have been prevailing issues across Western Europe since the 2008 financial crisis. These inequalities have intensified following Brexit and COVID-19, with young people consistently overrepresented in the gig economy and more in working poverty than any other age group.

Against a backdrop of increasingly mixed economies of welfare, this book explores civil society responses to youth unemployment in a quasi-federal or devolved state. Using original, empirical research and deconstructing welfare regime theory, it analyses the scale and nature of policy and civil society responses to youth unemployment between the four devolved nations of the UK (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) from the perspectives of policy makers, strategic thinkers and case workers.