“When the money's low”: Economic participation among disadvantaged young Australians

As a generational group, children and young people are rarely independent financial actors but are nonetheless active consumers of goods and services related to their social identities and enduring orientations to learning, work and community. Many young Australians, however, do not have adequate access to the financial resources that permit their engagement with youth cultures constructed around commodity consumption nor with services and activities that support their future workforce and civic participation. Furthermore, they negotiate this lack of provision in an overarching political climate that individualises responsibility for disadvantage and its outcomes. This paper draws on stories from over 70 young Australians (11–17) to illustrate how they experience and manage the economic demands of family, schooling and peer cultures. Their accounts add to the growing literature that demonstrates how young people mobilise material and discursive resources but also points to the need for social policy that addresses the multiple material, social, discursive and institutional barriers to their full social inclusion.