This report examines changes over time among young adults who have experienced particular difficulties in achieving and retaining paid work in the ordinary labour market: youth with family background from non-Nordic countries and youth with disabilities in the Nordic countries. The report identifies processes and mechanisms enabling or preventing the labour market prospects of the two youth groups. The report focuses on policy measures aiming at tackling demand-side barriers to employment for the two youth groups. While available data have not made it possible to determine robust evidence of an effect (positive or negative) of the social regulation policies for the employment of vulnerable youth groups in statistical terms, the report identifies processes and mechanisms through which social regulation policies make a difference.

Over the last three decades, a number of reforms have taken place in European social policy with an impact on the opportunities for persons with disabilities to be full and active members of society. The policy reforms have aimed to change the balance between citizens’ rights and duties and the opportunities to enjoy choice and autonomy, live in the community and participate in political decision-making processes of importance for one’s life. How do the reforms influence the opportunities to exercise Active Citizenship? This volume presents the findings from the first cross-national comparison of how persons with disabilities reflexively make their way through the world, pursuing their own interests and values. The volume considers how their experiences, views and aspirations regarding participation vary across Europe. Based on retrospective life-course interviews, the volume examines the scope for agency on the part of persons with disabilities, i.e. the extent to which men and women with disabilities are able to make choices and pursue lives they have reasons to value. Drawing on structuration theory and the capability approach, the volume investigates the opportunities for exercising Active Citizenship among men and women in nine European countries. The volume identifies the policy implications of a process-oriented and multi-dimensional approach to Active Citizenship in European disability policy. It will appeal to policymakers and policy officials, as well as to researchers and students of disability studies, comparative social policy, international disability law and qualitative research methods.

Viewed through a politico-economic lens, Nordic countries share what is often referred to as the ‘Nordic model’, characterised by a comprehensive welfare state; higher spending on childcare; more equitable income distribution; and lifelong-learning policies. This edited collection considers these contexts to explore the complex nature of tourism employment, thereby providing insights into the dynamic nature, characteristics, and meaning of work in tourism. Contributors combine explorations of the impact of policy on tourism employment with a more traditional human resources management approach focusing on employment issues from an organizational perspective, such as job satisfaction, training, and retention. The text points to opportunities as well as challenges relating to issues such as the notion of ‘decent work’, the role and contribution of migrant workers, and more broadly, the varying policy objectives embedded within the Nordic welfare model. Offering a detailed, multi-faceted analysis of tourism employment, this book is a valuable resource for students, researchers and practitioners interested in tourism employment in the region.

Career and Career Guidance in the Nordic Countries explores what kind of context the Nordic region offers for the pursuit of career, how the development of careers are supported and how career guidance is enacted in this context.

Young people in the Middle East (15–29 years old) constitute about one-third of the region's population. Growth rates for this age group trail only sub-Saharan Africa. This presents the region with an historic opportunity to build a lasting foundation for prosperity by harnessing the full potential of its young population. Yet young people in the Middle East face severe economic and social exclusion due to substandard education, high unemployment, and poverty. Thus the inclusion of youth is the most critical development challenge facing the Middle East today. A Generation in Waiting portrays the plight of young people, urging greater investment designed to improve the lives of this critical group. It brings together perspectives from the Maghreb to the Levant. Each chapter addresses the complex challenges facing young people in many areas of their lives: access to decent education, opportunities for quality employment, availability of housing and credit, and transitioning to marriage and family formation. This volume presents policy implications and sets an agenda for economic development, creating a more hopeful future for this and future generations in the Middle East. Selected contributors include Ragui Assaad (University of Minnesota), Brahim Boudarbat (University of Montreal), Jad Chaaban (American University in Beirut), Nader Kabbani (Syria Trust for Development), Taher Kanaan (Jordan Center for Public Policy Research and Dialogue), Djavad Salehi-Isfahani (Wolfensohn Center for Development and Virginia Tech), and Edward Sayre (University of Southern Mississippi).

The 2017 edition of the Latin American Economic Outlook explores youth, skills and entrepreneurship. Young Latin Americans embody the region’s promise and perils. They stand at the crossroads of a region whose once promising economy and social progress is now undergoing a slowdown.

Including youth in the labour market is a major challenge facing many European countries. This book examines the transitions from education to employment with a focus on Nordic youth in the broader European context. The book combines insights from the social sciences and law by linking the challenges facing young people in general and the more specific barriers facing the more vulnerable groups of young people. Youth, Diversity and Employment provides original insights on the interdependencies or interaction between redistributive and regulatory social policies.

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of key challenges and barriers to achieving greater youth inclusion in the bioeconomy. The analysis covers key factors (push/pull factors) that impact youth employment and entrepreneurship opportunities, such as education, vocational training, skills building, technology and business development. It also underscores the significance of considering economic development opportunities, rural–urban dynamics, and sustainable resource management when implementing policies. The study assesses the youth inclusiveness of current bioeconomy strategies and related policies and identifies six policy goals and how they need to be addressed for greater youth inclusion. Additionally, the report assesses specific youth employment opportunities and challenges in different sectors of the bioeconomy and provides a specific set of recommendations to support youth participation in the bioeconomy. Finally, the report provides generic recommendations for better youth inclusion and support in the bioeconomy. Overall, the report concludes that the bioeconomy offers considerable opportunities and is attractive to youth, but more needs to be done to support youth entrepreneurship and employment in the sector.

Demonstrates the importance of the first interim governments in shaping the trajectory of political transition in Tunisia and Libya after the 2011 uprisings.

This book draws from various fields of knowledge, in an effort to theorise, create new and innovative conceptual platforms and develop further the hybrid idea of discourses around social inclusion and youth (from policy, practice and research perspectives). Youth: Responding to lives – An international handbook attempts to fill the persistent gap in the problematisation and understanding of inclusion, communalism, citizenship – that are intertwined within the complex youth debate. It writhes and wriggles to highlight the interconnections between the encounters, events and endeavors in young people’s lives. The focus of this edited work is also intended to help us understand how young people shape their development, involvement, and visibility as socio-political actors within their communities. It is this speckled experience of youth that remains one of the most electrifying stages in a community’s lifecycle. Contributors to this text have engaged with notions around identity and change, involvement, social behavior, community cohesion, politics and social activism. The chapters offer an array of critical perspectives on social policies and the broad realm of social inclusion/exclusion and how it affects young people. This book essentially analyses equal opportunities and its allied concepts, including inequality, inequity, disadvantage and diversity that have been studied extensively across all disciplines of social sciences and humanities but now need a youth studies ‘application’.