Pratiques et représentations de la sobriété des jeunes ni aux études ni en emploi au Québec

https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/lsp/2024-n93-lsp09809/1115794ar/

This paper is based on a research made as part of a doctoral thesis in sociology, defended in December 2022. It focused on the relationship to work, meritocracy and success of young people neither in education, employment nor training (categorized as NEET) in Quebec, Canada. Of the 36 young people I met from different regions of Quebec, 14 were voluntarily withdrawing from the labour market and the education system at the time of the research. This article focuses on these young people. Using a comprehensive approach based on semi-structured interviews, it provide answers to the following questions: What arguments and strategies do they mobilize to distance themselves from social and institutional pressure to "reintegrate"? What are the foundations and determinants of this voluntary sufficiency? How do they put this alternative lifestyle into practice? I show that this chosen sufficiency and the meaning given to their NEET situation is based on two main arguments: resistance to the normativity of work in the life course, which combines with a redefinition of the meaning of socially useful; and rejection of social success norms, where chosen frugality is part of a refusal to “play the game” to accumulate and consume. Finally, I focus on the social and financial hardships coming with this chosen withdrawal.