Education, Employment and the Choice of Career Path Among Young Students in the UK

Education, Employment and the Choice of Career Path Among Young Students in the UK
Name
Class
Professor
School
City and state
Date
Introduction
Education is instrumental in present-day social life as it determines many other affordances, such as a person’s well-being. Employment stands as one of the significant outcomes of education. However, the UK has increasingly registered high youth unemployment rates since 2005 despite the high enrollment into higher education (HE) learning institutions. The most recent rises are attributable to the economic crisis in the country. However, many other confounding effects on unemployment exist, including gender, social class, and disability. Youth unemployment results when young people, which the United Nations defines as 15-24-year-olds, look for jobs but cannot find them (Mercy Corps, 2020). Although unemployment is inherently a problem, youth unemployment is rapidly becoming a global crisis.
Even though access to HE learning institutions in the UK has increased, leading to a dramatic expansion of enrollment into university courses, the youth employment rate remains relatively high compared to the overall unemployment rate in the country. While the employment rate in the UK stands at 4.3%, the youth unemployment rate in 2021 has reached a staggering 11.7% (Stastica, 2021; Office for National Statistics, 2021). Data indicates a weak correlation between HE qualifications and employability and that other factors such as social status, disability, and gender influence youth’s employability (Clements et al., 2011). In this essay, I demonstrate the extent concerning youth’s freedom to decide their future career (mainly in the UK) through critically analyzing the restrictions provided by social class with relevant literature and theories. I will cover three main sections. I will address the first section through the lens of neoliberalism in conjunction with the marketization of education by exploring how individuals have the liberty to determine their future with the skills they acquire from education. The second section will examine how enhancing access to information enables youth to control their future; the third section will criticize the limitations of deciding youth’s employment with social class disparities.
Neoliberalism
Several theorists consider neoliberalism a political and economic ideology, with numerous critiques. In terms of an economic level, in place of Keynesianism, it emphasizes the existence of freedom among citizens and the diminishing state power in the economy (Thorsen and Lie, 2006, p.2). Therefore, in an era of neoliberalism, citizens acquire more freedom regarding choices and decision-making, forcing individuals to take responsibility for gaining control over wealth and power, thereby requiring a greater level of skill. As a result, individuals tend to become “self-interested” (Olssen and Peters, 2005, p.314; Akosah-Twumasi et al., 2018, p.59). They believe that they are experts in rational optimization and can analyze their demands and ambitions. In other words, the number of attempts made by himself solely determines the extent of one’s success. However, as of OECD (2020. p.5), given that young people ...