Youth long-term unemployment in France: Challenging common trends

Drawing upon information collected through 20 in-depth qualitative interviews with young long-term unemployed aged 18-34, we argue in this chapter that there is something quite specific about the way young people experience unemployment in France, and that their experience does not conform to the broader patterns laid out by sociologists. Overall, the analysis emphasizes on a number of key variables such as age, social position, cultural capital, gender, and the effect of specific processes of socialization in a given territory. Although unemployment undeniably affects social ties and heightens the risks of isolation, we show that the wide variety of experiences among young people is not always severe, and certainly not entirely aligned with the catastrophic experience of the unemployed in Marienthal.