Book launch: Global Youth Unemployment: History, Governance and Policy

Authors: Prof. Nicola Yeates and Prof. Ross Fergusson

Chair: Dr Jane Pillinger

Discussants: Prof. Heidi Gottfried and Prof. Robin Simmons

Join us for this inaugural launch, where authors Prof. Nicola Yeates and Prof. Ross Fergusson from the Department of Social Policy and Criminology at the Open University will be joined by a distinguished panel of academics to discuss some of the key questions and issues the book tackles:

1. What is the relationship between youth unemployment, welfare and globalisations?
2. How is the big rise in global youth unemployment since 2008 to be explained?
3. What are the prospects for meeting the UN’s goals for its Global Compact for Youth Employment by 2030?

In the book, Yeates and Fergusson argue that only by incorporating analysis of the dynamics of the global economy and global governance can we make convincing, comprehensive sense of persistent and burgeoning and endemic youth unemployment. The authors present substantial new evidence spanning a century pointing to the strong relationships between youth unemployment, globalisation, economic crises and consequent harms to young people’s social and economic welfare worldwide. Global Youth Unemployment notably encompasses data and analysis spanning the Global South as well as the Global North. Fergusson and Yeates argue that only by incorporating analysis of the dynamics of the global economy and global governance can we make convincing, comprehensive sense of these developments. Seven subsequent substantive chapters span histories, territories, academic disciplines and policy contexts, providing original interpretations and new statistical and policy analyses. These examine the incidence, distribution, impacts and putative causes of persistent and increasing youth unemployment and its global governance.

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Book Launch - Global Youth Unemployment: History, Governance & Policy