Economic recession and youth achievement orientations

This chapter examines the development of achievement orientations, and considers how key socialization processes may be affected in times of economic turbulence. We posit that economic recessions are detrimental for youth because of their potential to disrupt socialization to work in the family and in the workplace. We support this argument by drawing on findings from the three-generation Youth Development Study (YDS), which has followed a cohort of young people from adolescence to their mid-thirties, and has also surveyed their parents and their children. Agentic orientations are shown to yield pervasive occupational dividends; we trace their development across three generations. We also provide evidence that parental setbacks during the Great Recession impacted children's economic expectations and educational aspirations.