1

New Agendas on Youth and Young Adulthood

Youth Studies Conference

University of Glasgow

April 2013

David Cairns

Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology

ISCTE-IUL

david.cairns@iscte.pt

Everybody Hurts?

Tertiary Educated Portuguese Youth and the Impact of the Economic Crisis

Abstract

The economic crisis continues to create difficulties for youth, particularly in the

Mediterranean periphery of the European Union. This paper considers the impact of the

crisis and the austerity policies which have followed it in one of most affected countries,

Portugal, focusing upon tertiary educated youth in the capital city of Lisbon. Findings are

drawn from research undertaken in 2011 and 2012 with a total of 800 students, exploring

the extent of economic crisis impact in these young people’s lives and differentials

according to personal characteristics. Results show that the economic crisis is making a

dramatic impact on the lives of the majority of respondents: in respect to deteriorating

future job prospects and diminishing value of educational credentials, as well as more

personal impacts. Further analysis reveals that the impact of the crisis has grown more

pronounced over the two years in which fieldwork was conducted, as well as revealing the

extent of differentials according to factors including gender, age, parental occupation and

field of study.

Keywords

Students; Economic Crisis; Austerity; Portugal; Lisbon

Wordcount

?,???

2

Introduction

This paper explores the impact of the economic crisis on youth, concentrating on young

people currently studying at tertiary level educational institutions in Portugal. This crisis,

which has been on-going since the global financial collapse of 2007/08 (Claessens et al.

2010), has brought with it hardship for millions of people across Europe, with rising costs of

living, swinging cuts in welfare, and elevated and expanded levels of taxation. To this we

might add extensive job losses and dwindling educational and occupational opportunities.

While many people are evidently suffering in the crisis affected countries, it is young people

who are bearing the brunt of the impact of crisis, demonstrated in spiralling unemployment

rates. In Portugal, it is also tertiary educated youth who have suffered the greatest loss of

opportunities, raising the rather disturbing notion that it may be the most diligent and

talented young people who are suffering the most, particularly in terms of the loss of future

employment prospects.1

What follows in this paper is a discussion of the situation facing Portuguese tertiary

educated youth in the aftermath of the economic crisis. Discussion is grounded in empirical

evidence gathered from a total of 800 students in the capital city of Lisbon during 2011 and

2012. The main line of enquiry is concerned not only with quantifying the impact of the

crisis but also looks for evidence of possible differentials in this impact, in respect to gender,

age, parental occupation and field of study. Can we say that all of those surveyed are

suffering equally, and have the hardships being endured deepened and/or broadened in

scope across the two years in which the research was conducted?

3

A Brief History of Portuguese Austerity

Although what follows relates to the contemporary Portuguese youth reality, with specific

reference to the post 2007/08 financial crisis period, it is important to contextualise the

present research in terms of historical factors. Certainly, the global financial crash and the

arrival of the Troika in Portugal in April 2011 are central to this reality but present hardships

are also the legacy of a failed attempt to overcome the social and economic deficits brought

about by the period of totalitarian dictatorship (1926-1974) and the social inequality

engendered by post-1974 development.2 When the global financial crisis reached Portugal,

the country was caught playing catch-up with its European neighbours, and having

accumulated an unmanageable debt burden, the country’s economy could not survive

without external help from the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and

European Commission Troika.

While there may not have been a malicious intent to impoverish the population from

Portuguese politicians, or even the shady personnel of the Troika, the response to the crisis

from successive Portuguese governments has grown progressively belligerent in terms of

the range and depth of austerity measures. Ironically, it was not a right wing government

which introduced austerity to Portugal but rather the Socialist party led administration of

Prime Minister José Socrates; this involved extensive cuts in public services including health

and education, tax rises and reductions in salaries, particularly for those working in the

public sector as part of a series of un-ironically titled Packages for Economic Stability (PECs).

While the austerity measures of the Socrates government were perceived at the time as

being unduly harsh, to the extent of prompting an election which removed the socialist

party from office after the failure to ratify PEC 4 in early 2011, the measures introduced by

4

centre-right coalition led by Pedro Passos Coelho which came to power in mid-2011 have

been sterner. In fact, these austerity policies now only exceeded what had gone before in

Portugal but surpassed what the Troika actually demanded in terms of cuts in public

expenditure to the point where the 2011 budget was deemed unconstitutional due to a

disproportionate targeting of public sector workers. This led to a revised, and more

inclusive, range of austerity measures being formulated in 2012 which proposed salary cuts

for both public and private sector workers.

This very brief history of Portuguese austerity is pertinent to the present research in

that these successive waves of austerity measures have impacted upon the lives of

Portuguese youth in a potentially different manner; this is why two surveys have been

conducted in 2011 and 2012, to appraise the impact of the respective austerity measures.

Austerity itself has influenced the research design, in providing many obvious questions in

need of answers. For example, what impact is the drastically reduced number and range of

job opportunities in Portugal having upon these young people? What of the state’s

withdrawing investment from tertiary education? How do young people cope with the more

indirect impact of financial hardship experienced by family members upon whom they are

dependent? And what of the consequences for the future particularly in respect to the

possibility of attaining financial independence or starting a family?

Methodological Approach

As noted above, this paper looks at the impact of the economic crisis in Portugal at two

intervals. Data has been gathered from students in 2011 and 2012, with two matched

5

samples of 400 cases for each respective year. All the respondents were aged between 18

and 25 years old and living in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area. Fieldwork consisted of a

quantitative survey, with a sample constructed using the parameters of field of study and

gender from the most recently available statistics on the Portuguese student population.

Respondents were spread proportionately across twelve different academic fields of study:

Business and Administration; Health; Engineering; Social and Behavioural Sciences;

Architecture; Arts; Education; Law; Humanities; Life Sciences; and Computing.3 Data

collection was performed at various faculties of the four public universities in Lisbon

(University of Lisbon, New University of Lisbon, Technical University of Lisbon and ISCTE-

University Institute of Lisbon).

Shared Impact of the Economic Crisis

Discussion of results begins with an overview of the impact being made by the crisis. The

questionnaire included a block of questions developed during previous research on the

economic crisis in Portugal (Cairns 2011). These questions examined five key areas in which

a student respondent may have been affected by the economic crisis and the austerity

responses mentioned in the contextual discussion. This incorporated not only issues that

might be regarded as explicit, or more tacit, economic dimensions such as the possibilities

of finding a job and attaining financial independence, but also more personal matters,

namely the likelihood of having a family of one’s own and feelings of well-being. Bearing in

mind the educational context of the research, added to this is a question relating to tertiary

level qualifications as a diminishing asset.4 All these questions were phrased to measure the

respondent’s own subjective experiences during the economic crisis as opposed to a more

6

general youth cohort impact. The availability of data from two surveyed also provides an

opportunity to examine the significance of changes between 2011 and 2012.

Table 1. Economic Crisis Impact: 2011 and 2012

2011 (%) 2012 (%)

Value of qualifications diminishing** 74 83

Possibility of finding a job decreasing 91 89

Possibility of becoming financially independent decreasing* 88 92

Possibility of having own family decreasing*** 56 77

Sense of personal well-being negatively affected*** 54 74

All five impacts*** 27 40

Pearson’s chi square level of significance *** .001 **>.005 *>.05

Looking at Table 1, it is evident that the majority of respondents feel that the economic

crisis has been affecting their lives, and in multiple ways. The more obvious economic

questions provide the most predictable answers: given the present level of graduate

unemployment in Portugal it is no surprise to learn that the possibility of finding a job has

been decreasing for these young people; while slightly fewer respondents, 89 per cent,

agreed in 2012 compared to 91 per cent the previous year, the difference is not significant

and the figures still extremely high. Similar numbers of respondents also agreed that the

possibility of attaining financial independence from their families was decreasing: 88 per

cent in 2011 compared to 92 per cent in 2012.

The results in this table show that there has been a general increase in levels of crisis

impact during the timeframe of this research, implying that the continuation and expansion

of austerity policy is making matters worse for more tertiary educated young people in

7

Portugal. This is certainly the case in respect to perceptions of the value of educational

credentials: in 2011, 74 per cent felt that the value of their qualifications was diminishing

while in 2012, the equivalent figure was 83 per cent. This implies that tertiary level

qualifications are losing their salience as a means of labour market entry; and increasingly

so. However, the greatest change between 2011 and 2012 relates to the two more

subjective personal considerations: there was a sharp increase in the number of cases in

which it was felt the possibility of having a family was decreasing, 56 per cent in 2011 and

77 per cent in 2012; likewise the negative impact on personal well-being increased from 54

per cent in 2011 to 74 per cent in 2012.5

Differential Crisis Impacts

Having found that there is a generalised, and increasing, economic crisis impact among

respondents, we now move towards exploring differentials; do factors such as gender, age

and socio-economic background, as well as field of study, have an impact on the likelihood

of been affected by the crisis? And what of changes between various groups across the two

time periods in which the research was conducted? Table 2 presents an overview of mean

scores to the aggregated five impacts for the 2011 and 2012 samples.

Table 2. Respondents with all economic crisis impacts (mean scores): 2011 and 2012

2011 2012

Gender

Male

Female .68 .79

8

.77 .86

Age

18 .69 .78

19 .73 .90

20 .71 .85

21 .79 .74

22 .76 .85

23 .74 .92

24 .58 .83

25 .64 .91

Parental occupation

Professionals .69 .76

Managerial/Technical .67 .84

Non-Manual Skilled .75 .83

Manual Skilled .74 .77

Partly Skilled .76 .79

Unskilled .68 .95

Field of Study

Business and Administration .70 .84

Health .73 .92

Engineering .61 .63

Social and Behavioural Sciences .81 .90

Architecture and Building .58 .78

Arts .81 .89

Education .94 .88

Law .80 .92

Personal Services .83 .80 Humanities .84 .87

Life Sciences .68 .85

Computing .55 .75

All Cases .73 .83

9

While we have observed from Table 1 that there is a generally high level of impact within

the tertiary educated cohort per se, Table 2 shows that there are differences between and

within various groups, and across the two years in which the research was conducted.

Gender

Looking at gender, in 2011 there was significantly greater impact for young women

compared to young men; at a level of .001 according to the Anova statistic. One year later in

2012, the difference between male and female was still significant, albeit to a slightly lesser

extent (.006).

Figure 1. Economic crisis impacts (mean scores) by gender: 2011 and 2012

10

Figure 1 meanwhile graphically illustrates the difference between 2011 and 2012. As we

already know, there has been a general increase in impact (Table 1) but now we can see

that while the gap between male and female has not widening, and in fact marginally

decreased, it is still a considerable difference; in fact, t-test equality test statistics confirm

that the gap across years is significant (2-tailed) to a point of .000. Therefore, we can deduce

that gender matters in respect to the impact of the economic crisis registered by the

respondents and that while the level of impact has increased for male and female alike in

2012, a significant disparity remains.

Age

11

The picture in regard to age differentials is less clear. Looking at the means for 2011, we can

see that there are certainly differences but there is no distinct trend. The level of crisis

impact does not rise or fall in a coherent manner according to respondents being

progressively older or younger; Anova confirms that while there is a statistical tendency

towards age divergence (.054) this is not present to the extent as was the case with gender

differences. In 2012, the difference between age groups was at a more significant level

(.004), but again there is no linear pattern of results, i.e. impact progressively rising or falling

with age. What this means is that there are some very significant differences between

young people of certain ages revealed by Independent Samples t-tests, for instance

between 18 and 21 year olds, 21 and 24 year olds, 21 and 25 year olds and 22 and 24 year

olds in 2011 or 18 and 19 year olds, 19 and 21 year olds, 20 and 21 year olds, 21 and 22 year

olds, 21 and 23 year olds and 21 and 25 year olds in 2012, but no consistent pattern of

results.

Figure 2. Economic crisis impacts (mean scores) by age: 2011 and 2012

12

The outcomes illustrated in Figure 2 are perhaps more interesting. A significant difference

between the two years is apparent (t-test equality of means (2-tailed) .000): therefore, in

each age group with the exception of those aged 21 there has been an increase in crisis

impact in 2012. Significant disparities have also opened up between means in 2011 and

2012 for the 24 and 25 year old age groups, the latter of whom registered much greater

crisis impact. This would seem to indicate that impact has increased for old respondents

across the two time periods.

Parental Occupation

Identifying student respondents in terms of socio-economic position is always problematic,

given that such young people have yet to enter the full-time labour market; more so in

13

Portugal where there is no strong tradition of working while studying, due to factor such as

the long-standing willingness of families to provide inter-generational support, the low

levels of wages in jobs in the professions in which students could conceivably work and, for

more advanced scholars, the availability of state support at post-doctoral levels. This

situation means making recourse to the imperfect indicator of parental occupation in order

to assess this issue; imperfect both in the sense that this approach implies generational

equivalence of socio-economic position and the practical difficulty of situating respondents

with economically inactive parents. For this study, it was nevertheless possible to classify all

but 51 out of 800 cases, where parents were unemployed, working in unspecified

occupations or deceased.6

Looking at the overview of means presented in Table 2, we can observe disparities

between young people according to parental occupation, but in this instance differences

between groups are not significant and as with age there is no obvious trend: in respect to

2011, we cannot say that high impact is concentrated in the ‘highest’ or ‘lowest’

occupational groups but rather generally concentrated in the middle ranking occupations; in

2012 while the greatest impact was felt amongst respondents with ‘unskilled’ parents,

impact is also high for those with ‘managerial/technical’ parents. Looking at disparities

between groups, there are statistically significant differences revealed by Independent

Samples t-tests but only in 2012; between the outlying ‘unskilled’ group in contrast to the

other occupational categories.

Figure 3. Economic crisis impacts (mean scores) by parental occupation: 2011 and 2012

14

In regard to disparities between the two years, Figure 3 implies that there has been a

dramatic deepening of impact in the ‘unskilled’ group; and this is indeed the case (t-test

equality of means (2-tailed) .000). Elsewhere, changes across time are less pronounced.

What this means is that in the more recent sample, there is evidence suggesting a

heightening of crisis impact among those who may be from less well-off backgrounds,

although there is also greater impact at the other end of the occupational spectrum,

suggesting a continued broad diffusion of impact, as was the case in the 2011 sample.

Field of Study

15

Table 2 shows that differences between different fields of study were very significant in

both years (according to the Anova statistic, to a level of .000), and that level of impact

increased in all groups except ‘Education’ and ‘Personal Services’. Those most affected in

2011 were studying Education, Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences subjects, while in 2012

it was Health, Law, Social Sciences and Arts. Looking at differences between educational

groups, there were a host of significant disparities: 2011, between ‘Business’ and ‘Social

Sciences’, ‘Business’ and ‘Building’, ‘Business’ and ‘Education’, ‘Health’ and ‘Engineering’,

‘Health’ and ‘Building’, ‘Health and Education’, ‘Social Sciences’ and ‘Building’, ‘Social

Sciences’ and ‘Education’, ‘Social Sciences’ and ‘Computing’, ‘Building’ and ‘Arts’, ‘Building’

and ‘Education’, ‘Building’ and ‘Law’, ‘Building’ and ‘Personal Services’, ‘Building’ and

‘Humanities’, ‘Arts’ and ‘Education’, ‘Arts’ and ‘Computing’, ‘Education’ and ‘Law’,

‘Education’ and ‘Personal Services’, ‘Education’ and ‘Humanities’, ‘Education’ and ‘Life

Sciences’, ‘Education’ and ‘Computing’, ‘Law’ and ‘Computing’, ‘Personal Services’ and

‘Computing’ and ‘Humanities’ and ‘Computing;’ in 2012, ‘Business’ and ‘Health’, ‘Business’

and ‘Engineering’, ‘Health and Engineering’, ‘Health’ and ‘Building’, ‘Health’ and

‘Computing’, ‘Engineering’ and ‘Social Sciences’, ‘Engineering’ and ‘Building’, ‘Engineering’

and ‘Arts’, ‘Engineering’ and ‘Education’, ‘Engineering’ and ‘Law’, ‘Engineering’ and

‘Humanities’, ‘Engineering’ and ‘Life Sciences’, ‘Social Sciences’ and ‘Building’, ‘Social

Sciences’ and ‘Computing’, ‘Building’ and ‘Law’ and ‘Law’ and ‘Computing.’

Figure 4. Economic crisis impacts (mean scores) by field of study: 2011 and 2012

16

Figure 4 illustrates the disparities across the two annual samples. What emerges is quite a

mixed picture. As mentioned previously, there was an increase in impact intensity in all but

two groups although differences were not statistically significant; however, significant

increases were found among ‘Business’, ‘Health’, ‘Social Sciences’ and ‘Building’ students.

Combined Impacts

To better understand the significance of the combination of these various factors, linear

regression analysis has been conducted, with mean impact as the dependent variable and

gender (ref. cat male), age, parental occupation (ref. cat ‘unskilled’) and field of study (ref.

cat ‘computing’) as dependent variables. Two models are presented below, representing

17

results from 2011 and 2012 respectively. In Model 1 (2011), R square was .136 (Adjusted R

square .114) and according to Anova, the model was significant to a level of .000. In Model 2

(2012), R square was .176 (Adjusted R square .133) and according to Anova, the model was

also significant to a level of .000.

Table 3. Crisis impact: coefficients of gender, age, parental occupation and field of study

Model Unstandardized

Coefficients

Standardized

Coefficients

t Sig.

B Std. Error Beta

1

(Constant) .560 .125 4,493 ,000

Gender (male) -.034 .021 -.064 -1.639 ,102

Age ,005 ,005 ,035 ,967 ,334

PO - Professional -.046 .046 -.061 -1.011 .312

PO - Managerial -.015 .049 -.017 -.301 .763

PO – Non-Man. Skilled .036 .041 .068 .886 .376

PO – Man. Skilled -.007 .049 -.008 -.142 .887

PO – Partly Skilled -.008 .048 -.009 -.170 .865

Business .117 .062 .169 1.904 .057

Health .167 .062 .235 2.666 .008

Engineering -.012 .062 -.016 -.192 .848

Social Sciences .187 .064 .219 2.910 .004

Building -.001 .066 -.001 -.020 .984

Arts .195 .068 .183 2.878 .004

Education .240 .069 .229 3.501 .000

Law .211 .070 .185 3.025 .003

Personal Services .172 .085 .095 2.018 .044

Humanities .198 .074 .144 2.663 .008

Life Sciences .119 .077 .081 1.556 .120

2

(Constant) .547 .174 3.148 .002

Gender (male) -.030 .028 -.060 -1.074 .284

Age .013 .007 .108 1.955 .051

PO - Professional -.082 .073 -.089 -1-115 .266 PO - Managerial -.050 .068 -.064 -.742 .458

PO – Non-Man. Skilled -.035 .059 -.069 -.600 .549

PO – Man. Skilled -.099 .074 -.104 -1.340 .181

18

PO – Partly Skilled -.100 .073 -.104 -1.366 .173

Business .086 .082 .131 1.046 .296

Health .153 .083 .233 1.847 .066

Engineering -.121 .082 -.180 -1.478 .140

Social Sciences .126 .085 .158 1.482 .139

Building -.012 .090 -.012 -.134 .894

Arts .120 .090 .126 1.337 .182

Education .091 .091 .095 .997 .320

Law .129 .092 .122 1.399 .163

Personal Services .047 .260 .009 .180 .857

Humanities .114 .100 .087 1.144 .254

Life Sciences .082 .101 .061 .816 .415

Looking at the first model, we can see that the most significant independent variables all

related to field of study: the implication is that those aiming towards jobs in certain

occupational areas have felt most impact. This is not surprising given that the austerity

measures in 2011 were disproportionately aimed at workers in areas such as Health and

Education, while in other areas such as Law there are problems due to a pre-existing lack of

opportunities (see Cairns et al. forthcoming) and Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences have

long been typified as offering a limited future prospects. It is also notable that there has

been very little impact in areas such as Engineering and Building, which, at this time,

seemed to be weathering the economic crisis in Portugal well. Moving on to Model 2, and

the 2012 data, while there are some interesting statistical tendency, for instance in respect

to age, we can see that all the statistically significant outcomes revealed in Model 1 have

been more or less equalised. The impact of the economic crisis is hence more general and

we can say that a more broad-based programme of austerity measures in 2012 seems to

have resulted in a more equal sharing of crisis impact among the student respondents.

19

Discussion

These results certainly invite discussion. The initial breakdowns of Tables 1 and 2 illustrate,

respectively, that there is a high level of crisis impact as measured by a number of diverse

indicators, and that certain groups of young people seem to be more affected than others,

most obviously young women and certain field of study groups. These Tables also show that

the general depth of impact has increased between 2011 and 2012 among these student

respondents in Lisbon. This is not surprising, considering that not only has one more year of

austerity been endured by the more recent respondents but also that the range of austerity

measures expanded. The linear regression analysis provides a further perspective,

illustrating particularly how differential impact has been dissipated between the two years.

This applies that crisis impact has diffused, in tandem with or perhaps even because of the

expansion of the austerity measures.

Putting these results into context, it does need to be stressed that the group under

scrutiny, tertiary educated young people in Portugal, are suffering disproportionately

greater hardship compared to other age demographic and educational groups.

Nevertheless, this is a substantial part of the youth population (approximately 300,000

strong), and one which may feel particularly aggrieved since they are a generation facing

hardship for which they bear little or no responsibility for creating. This nevertheless raises

an important philosophical consideration, in that it is most educationally gifted young

people who are suffering most, implying that there is anti-educational impetus

accompanying the austerity policies. This is obviously a cause for concern in a relatively

peripheral society, not to mention inconsistent with the values espoused by austerity

exponents such as Chancellor Merkel.7

20

It is as yet unknown how long Portugal will continue in a state of crisis.

this is in stark contrast to the period preceding the crisis, characterised by an expansion of

tertiary level educational and career pathways (Machado Pais 2003)

To answer the question in the title of this concluding discussion, the answer is

somewhat perversely, yes and no. More specifically, the main finding of this paper is that

the impact of the economic crisis appears to be very widely distributed and generally

shared; however there are signs of differentials emerging, particular in relation to gender,

with young women registering more economic crisis impacts.

Acknowledgements

The author is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Studies and Research in Sociology, ISCTE-

Lisbon University Institute (CIES-IUL) in Lisbon, funded by the Portuguese Foundation for

Science and Technology’s Ciência 2008 programme. I would like to thank my colleagues for

their assistance in conducting this research, especially Nuno de Almeida Alves, Ana

Alexandre and Tiago Carvalho.

Notes

1. At the time of writing (3rd Quarter 2012), the official unemployed for the general population rate stood at 15.8%, but was 39% for the 15-24 year old age group and 42.8% for those with tertiary level education within this group (INE 2013). A full contextualisation of the employment situation of tertiary educated youth in Portugal will be included in the published version of this paper.

2. To these reasons we could add consistently low levels of economic productivity, high public expenditure to help overcome deficits in areas such as health and education, coupled with the pressure to meet Eurozone targets following membership of the European single currency.

3. Statistics produced by the Portuguese National Statistics Agency divide the student population into twenty two academic subject groups but only the largest groups were included in the final sample due to the small sizes of other groups (INE 2010: 118-119). For a

21

full discussion of results relating to the 2011 survey, see Cairns and Growiec (forthcoming) and Cairns et al. (forthcoming).

4. Outside Portugal, the declining value of educational credentials has been related to excessive numbers of graduates in relative to the number of graduate level jobs (see Roberts 2012).

5. In respect to the negative impact on personal well-being, interviews conducted as part of the 2011 research showed that there was a profound loss of hope in the future among some respondents, as well as unhappiness at declining job opportunities and, in one exceptional case, a reduced likelihood of completing studies. To the specific question of decreasing belief in the possibility of having a family, it was also interesting to observe that there was no significant difference between male and female respondents in either year.

6. Rather than use occupational classification systems such as ISCO-88, which are more appropriate for large scale surveys of the ‘adult’ population, the classification system detailed by Rose (1995) was employed.

7. This inconsistency is also mentioned in a recent interview with Ulrich Beck on the subject of Germany’s role as arbiter of the economic crisis and somewhat confused self-perception. See: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/03/25/five-minutes-with-ulrich-beck-germany-has-created-an-accidental-empire/

References

Cairns, D. and Smyth, J. (2010). ‘Youth on the Move? Student Mobility and Immobility in Portugal and Northern Ireland’ in D. Cairns (ed.) Youth on the Move? European Youth and Geographical Mobility, pp. 59-70, Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag.

Cairns D. (2011). ‘Youth, Precarity and the Future: Undergraduate housing transitions in Portugal during the economic crisis’, Sociologia Problems e Prácticas, 66: 9-26.

Cairns, D. (forthcoming). Youth Transitions, International Student Mobility and Spatial Reflexivity: Being Mobile? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Cairns, D., Growiec, K. and Alves, N. de A. (forthcoming) ‘Another ‘Missing Middle’? The Marginalised Majority of Tertiary Educated Youth in Portugal during the Economic Crisis’, Journal of Youth Studies.

Claessens, S., Dell’Ariccia, G. Igan, D. and Laeven, L. (2010). ‘Cross-country experiences and policy implications from the global financial crisis’, Economic Policy, April 2010: 268-93.

Instituto Nacional de Estatística (2010). Anuário Estatístico de Portugal Edição 2010, Lisboa, INE.

Instituto Nacional Estatistica (2012). Unemployment Rate (Series 2011 – Third Quarter 2012). Accessed January 2013 at:

22

http://www.ine.pt/xportal/xmain?xpid=INE&xpgid=ine_indicadores&indOcorrCod=0005599&selTab=tab0

Machado Pais, J. (2003). ‘The multiple faces of the future in the labyrinth of life’, Journal of Youth Studies, 6(2): 115-126.

Roberts, K. (2012). ‘The end of the long baby boomer generation’, Journal of Youth Studies, 15(4): 479-497.

Rose, D. (1995) Official Social Classifications in the UK. University of Surry Social Research Update. Accessed March 2012 at: http://sru.soc.surrey.ac.uk/SRU9.html.