Authors

Laima Zilinskiene¹;  ¹ Vilnius University, Lithuania

Discussion

The presentation examines whether and to what extent system transformation has an impact on youth’s social career, what role is played by internal and external adapters, and how much various situational configurations influence it. This theoretical approach (Humphrey, 1993) reveals how radical changes, readaptation of the close environment, global financial crisis, and the Covid-19 pandemic influenced the scenarios of the social career of youth, what determined the continuity or discontinuity of their social career, and / or what turning-point career breaks were observed. Life history interviews enable us to discover the specific contexts arising from different historical events that were used for this purpose. 

The analysis is based on 70 life story interviews collected as part of the on-going project ‘Growing up in Independent Lithuania: Life Courses of 1980-2000 Cohorts, Behavioural Strategies and their Contexts’.