Young people in theory have a world filled with opportunity and longer lives to enjoy it. But for too many these opportunities are out of reach. Educational attainment is increasingly central to life chances, but more dependent on family background here than in other countries. Rises in insecure work along with stalled pay risk further divides…

This article examines cross-country variations in adult skills inequality and asks why skills in Anglophone countries are so unequal. Drawing on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's recent Survey of Adult Skills and other surveys, it investigates the differences across countries and country groups in inequality in both…

In moving the first significant steps into a meaningful graduate career, young adults need to elaborate strategies, which consist in identifying and activating what seems useful in one's own context of reference. Specifically looking at the meaning of being young adults in two countries belonging to different welfare systems and thus diverging…

This paper is based on findings from a three-year longitudinal study in England called the Teacher Study which aimed to provide an analytical description of who Skills for Life (SfL) teachers are and what they do in their working lives. The main focus of the paper is teachers' career pathways and the possibilities of making a career in…