Unga arbetslösas ansikten : identitet och subjektivitet i det svenska och danska samhället

Sammanfattning: My aim is to show how unemployed youth, in Sweden and Denmark, during the years 1992-1996, were coping with their situation as unemployed, by focusing on their motivation for work, their conception of work, and their alternative action. Swedish youth have for a number of decades lived with a labour market policy which has had full employment as a goal and included active measures. Danish youth have grown up with high unemployment and some parents even have been or are out of work. Denmark has had high levels of unemployment for 20 years and only in recent years (from1996) has there been a more active labour market policy. I have constructed empirical social types to increase the understanding of differences between managing the situation as unemployed, between nationality, between the sexes and attitudes towards work. The social types are for example; ”the restless”, ”the adventures”, ”the lacerated” , ”the dreamers” and ” the life enjoyers”. By dividing unemployed youth in social types the polarization about the conception of work has become more clear, for example, between ”the restless” and ”the life enjoyers”. Why the youth chose different alternatives of action and the reason why some can be seen as subjectivized and others not, has to do with four factors; labour market policy, influence of parents, the development of identity, and societal changes, which leads to new conditions.