engleski

‘Normalised’ Precarity of Youth Status and Migratory Aspirations of Croatian Youth

Uncertainty of life prospects, especially in relation to the educational and employment outcomes, influences all aspects of young people’s lives, from health and wellbeing, to leisure time and political and cultural participation. For the youth in Croatia, 2018 is marked by persistence of economic crisis, ‘normalised’ precarity and unstable prospects, which forces an increasing number of young people to leave the country in a search of better education and employment opportunities. In order to understand position of the young people in Croatia and a degree of their vulnerability, this paper will present data resulting from the Shell Youth Studies, conducted on the nationally representative samples of young people (N=1.500) in 2012 and 2018. Shell Youth Study data include information on the respondents' socio- professional status, professional aspirations, employment trajectories, working conditions, factors of finding and accepting a job, and migrations, enabling a dynamic analysis of young peoples' status, aspirations and vulnerabilities. The quantitative data will be supplemented by the data gathered via focus groups (N=56) that collected insights on previous migratory experiences and current aspirations of young people. The data will show that socio-economic status of young people in Croatia is deteriorating, making young people more prone to long-term migration. Such processes leave the country without valuable human resources, which contributes to further downgrading of its status in comparison to other EU-member states. The analytical framework places the research data inside the analysis of socio- political changes and transformations that Croatian society and economy have undergone since accessing the European Union.

Youth, employment, precarity, aspirations, migrations

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