The prevalence of ‘life planning’: evidence from UK graduates
Rachel Brooks and Glyn Everett
Published in the British Journal of Sociology of Education, 2008
Abstract
At a time when ‘personal development planning’ is being rolled out across the UK
higher education sector, this paper explores young adults’ inclinations to plan for the
future in relation to work, relationships and other aspects of life. Although Giddens
(1991) has emphasised the prevalence of strategic life planning (or the ‘colonisation
of the future’) in all strata of contemporary society, du Bois Reymond (1998) has
argued that there are important differences by social class, with young people from
more privileged backgrounds more likely than their peers to engage in such life
planning activities. This paper draws on interviews with 90 young adults (in their
mid-20s) to question some of these assumptions about relationships between social
location and propensity to plan for the future. It shows how, within this sample at
least, there was a strong association between having had a privileged ‘learning career’
(such as attending a high status university and identifying as an ‘academic high flier’)
and a disinclination to form detailed plans for the future. In part, this appeared to be
related to a strong sense of ontological security and the confidence to resist what
Giddens terms ‘an increasingly dominant temporal outlook’.
The prevalence of ‘life planning’: evidence from UK graduates
Background
Late modern society is characterised, it is argued, by new risks that are less
predictable and harder to control than those faced by previous societies, such as the
possibility of ecological catastrophes and the collapse of highly interdependent global
economic systems. In many analyses, these changes are thought to be accompanied
by a concomitant decline of traditions and the rise of individualised patterns of
consumption (Warde, 1994). Some theorists have gone on to argue that this ‘posttraditional’ order of modernity has increased the importance of strategic life planning.
Indeed, Giddens (1991) has contended that:
The more tradition loses its hold, and the more daily life is reconstituted in terms
of the dialectical interplay of the local and the global, the more individuals are
forced to negotiate lifestyle choices among a diversity of options….Reflexively
ordered life planning, which normally presumes consideration of risks as filtered
through contact with expert knowledge, becomes a central feature of the
structuring of identity (p.5).
Alongside these arguments which suggest that shifts towards greater reflexivity on the
part of individuals are an effective means of responding to recent social change, are
others which claim that policies that place more responsibility on the individual for
managing his or her own life in a reflexive manner may be driven by other concerns.
For example, Edwards (2002) has argued that the shift away from education and
training and towards lifelong learning, evident in both UK and European policy, aims
to fashion conduct based on certain norms and values, ‘wherein individuals are taken
to be active subjects not passive objects’; and thus, ‘lifelong learning can be argued to
play an influential role in catering for active, enterprising selves and subjecting them
to educational and training practices that attempt to instil flexibility and enterprise as
desirable and desired ways of “being”’ (p.359).
Such assertions have been explored in relation to young people, in particular, in a
number of studies – both theoretical and empirical. Indeed, researchers in various
developed countries have argued that there is now much greater diversity in the life
course, especially in its early stages, and that young people are now faced with an
increased number of choices in relation to education and training, employment,
household formation, relationships and lifestyle more generally (e.g. Dwyer and Wyn,
2001; Heath and Cleaver, 2003). As a result of these choices, some have contended
that we have witnessed a corresponding increase in life planning, as young people are
required – by the conditions of late modernity – to make choices between the different
pathways open to them. Others have pointed out that, while young people may
believe that they have a bewildering array of choices, the options that are, in practice,
open to them are largely constrained by structural factors. For some researchers, the
extent of this constraint varies with social location: du Bois Reymond (1998), for
example, has distinguished clearly between ‘choice’ and ‘standard’ biographies. In
contrast, others such as Reay and colleagues (2001) have argued that the choices of all
young people are bounded by a strong imperative to follow what is deemed to be
appropriate for ‘a person like me’.
To test some of these claims about the prevalence of life planning, we can draw on
detailed empirical research that has been conducted across various European
countries. Although they have arrived at different conclusions, the studies discussed
below all emphasise important differences by social position in young people’s
inclination to engage in reflexive life planning and/or the nature of the type of plans
they form. Indeed, as Allat and Dixon (2005) argue, life planning and life
management are not solely individual responses, but ‘mediated by differences in
motivation, values, family heritage and social background’ (p.89).
On the basis of her work with 120 15-21 year-olds in the Netherlands, du Bois
Reymond (1998) distinguishes between two different concepts of life which are
realised by today’s post-adolescents: ‘choice’ biographies and ‘normal’ biographies.
The former are characterised, she claims, by the paradox of choice typical of modern
life:
Although (western) societies provide more options to choose from, modern
(young) people are forced to reflect on the available options and justify their
decisions. They might also get frustrated because they realize that there are
many options available; perhaps they do not feel ready to make a good choice,
or perhaps they would like to make a choice but are prevented from doing so.
(p.65)
These biographies are often non-linear and gender-independent in ways that ‘normal’
biographies are not, give expression to post-materialist values (such as selfactualisation and communication), and tend to be associated with the cultural elite or,
in du Bois Reymond’s terms, the ‘trendsetters’ of contemporary society. In contrast,
the young people who take up ‘normal’ biographies do not occupy such a privileged
social position. For this group, the goal is to take up clearly defined employment at an
early stage in their lives and enter into long-term relationships in order to start a
family. Within this typology, it is clearly theoretically possible for both groups to
engage in very similar degrees of ‘life planning’ – developing equally detailed
strategies to achieve their (different) medium- and long-term goals. However,
although this is not discussed explicitly in du Bois Reymond’s paper, the assumption
seems to be that, because of the greater choices that they believe to be open to them
and the perceived absence of any preordained lifecourse trajectories, the ‘trendsetters’
engage in a significantly higher level of reflexive life planning than their peers.
Brannen and Nilsen’s (2002) work, amongst 18-30 year-olds in Norway and the UK,
also points to considerable diversity in the ways in which young people conceptualise
their futures. In contrast to du Bois Reymond, they place much more emphasis on the
temporal or age-related dimensions of the choices and plans of their respondents, and
the extent to which they engaged in planning for the future. Indeed, they outline three
main models which, they argue, represent the different discourses that they identified
amongst their sample of young adults: ‘deferment’ in which most emphasis is put on
the present (and was evident amongst younger age groups); ‘adaptability’ in which
respondents were also concerned with the extended present but saw themselves as
having the possibility to forge the future; and ‘predictability’ where the emphasis is
very much on the long-term. However, in Brannen and Nilsen’s study all the
members of this last group were young men, leading the authors to conclude that ‘it is
perhaps ironic that the only young people in the study from whom the notion of life as
a planning project may be truly apt are those who aspire to be male breadwinners’
(p.531). Thus, while the studies by du Bois Reymond and Brannen and Nilsen both
point to significant differences in young adults’ propensity to plan, they arrive at
rather different conclusions about the characteristics of those who do engage in
strategic life planning.
More recent work, amongst a large sample of young adults in the UK, conducted by
Anderson et al. (2005) has, however, raised some questions about the extent to which
Brannen and Nilsen’s work can be generalised. Indeed, they claim that many more
young adults plan than had previously been thought. Almost all their 268 respondents
claimed that they had made at least short-term plans and had some ambitions, and
over a half had planned for at least a few years ahead. While some in their sample did
place emphasis predominantly on the present, in line with Brannen and Nilsen’s
model of deferment, the majority demonstrated a more linear and forward-looking
approach. This leads Anderson and colleagues to conclude that:
In spite of considerable sense of insecurity, the young adults we studied do in
general feel in control of their lives, and do have well articulated ambitions
and plans to achieve them with respect especially to work and housing.
Indeed, conditions of modern life almost force many to seek to plan to some
degree in these areas. (2002, p.1)
The one exception to this general trend were those ‘in multiply stressed situations
where any possibility of planning for the future is severely hampered by lack of
resources and other constraints’ (2005, p.148). They typically exercised forethought
only in the short-term, and believed that any possibility of planning for the future
would be severely restricted by a lack of resources and other constraints.
Research methods
In engaging with these debates, we draw on evidence from 90 young adults who were
interviewed between September 2005 and January 2006 as part of a project on
‘Young Graduates and Lifelong Learning’. All were graduates of a UK higher
education institution (HEI) and were recruited primarily to investigate the relationship
between higher education and lifelong learning. Nevertheless, as part of our in-depth
interviews we were keen to explore the extent to which our respondents had actively
planned their learning and work careers, and whether there had been any changes in
their propensity to plan, post-graduation. As part of a more wide-ranging life history
interview, we asked them about their decision-making processes (in relation to work,
learning and leisure) at various points throughout their lives. As Table I demonstrates,
fifteen graduates were recruited from each of six HEIs, with very different market
positions. Mailshots, asking for volunteers to take part in the study, were sent by the
alumni offices of the six institutions to 600 young adults who had graduated in 2000,
and who were in their mid-twenties at the time of the project. As this method of
recruitment did not generate sufficient responses, it was followed up with adverts on
the ‘Friends Reunited’ website. This enabled us to reach our target sample of 90, with
15 young adults from each of the six HEIs1.
1
Although our initial sample, to whom the alumni mailing was sent, was chosen to be reasonably
diverse (in terms of gender, degree subject, ethnicity and geographical area), the achieved sample was
imbalanced in a number of ways: for example, we recruited more women than men, and a very small
number of respondents from ethnic minority backgrounds.
Given the focus of our study, it is clearly the case that we did not interview a
representative sample of young adults in their mid-twenties. Although our
respondents came from a variety of different social class backgrounds, they were all
in possession of at least a first degree. Thus, the claims we make in this paper are
primarily about the life plans and life projects of a relatively privileged group of
young adults who, by virtue of their educational credentials if nothing else, would be
likely to be seen as part of the middle class. As a result, the extent to which we are
able to generalise is limited. The middle classes have been shown, through a variety
of studies, to be more inclined to engage in long term planning for the future than
other social groups (Bernstein, 1997). For example, in their study of middle class
decisions about childcare, Vincent and Ball (2006) argue that such practices: ‘involve
investments within the child, both in the accrual of class resources…and in terms of
the realization over time of particular selfhoods and personalities’ (p.159) and go onto
claim that, for these families, the emphasis is very much on the long term and the
educational futures that they plan for their children. Nevertheless, despite the
apparent homogeneity of our sample, as the discussion below will demonstrate, we
focus on some interesting cleavages within the middle class and, in particular, on
those young adults who eschew all forms of forward life-planning.
[Insert Table I]
Evidence from the ‘Young Graduates’ project
Overall, the respondents in our study exhibited a high level of engagement with ‘life
planning’ and a clear majority talked about how they had developed plans for the
medium- and/or long-term. As such, this tends to support the claims of Anderson et
al., that life planning is perhaps more common than previous studies of young adults
have suggested. However, across the sample as a whole there was a clear distinction
between, on one hand, young graduates who liked to form detailed plans about their
future employment, learning and – in some cases – other parts of their lives and, on
the other, those who consciously rejected any pressure to develop this type of plan.
Indeed, our research builds on previous studies by suggesting that it is not only those
in situations of multiple disadvantage who do not engage in life planning – it is also
those at the top of the social hierarchy. Amongst our sample of young graduates, it
was those in the most privileged positions who actively rejected any suggestions that
they might plan for the future. In this section, we present some data to support these
claims, and then go on to explore some of the reasons why a small and highly
privileged sub-sample of our respondents were resistant to notions of reflexive life
planning.
The Planners
It was apparent from the life history interviews that planning for the future was an
important part of the lives of a majority of our respondents. For these young
graduates, the type of learning they took up post-graduation (as well as, in many
cases, earlier in their learning careers) was carefully planned. For some individuals, it
was also linked to well-formulated plans about career and/or family life. Both men
and women were represented in this group, as were all six higher education
institutions. For some, this commitment to planning for the medium- and long-term
represented clear continuity with previous stages in their lives:
My plans change all the time because every year I set new goals and new
milestones and things. (Josephine, business account executive, Post-922)
Others, however, were able to pinpoint particular moments in their lives when they
had started to develop life plans. For Reese, this moment had come when he was at
school, and was prompted by a work placement:
I went on a work experience…and suddenly I just had this grip that I wanted
to be, work in the commercial world….so I had my career planned out from
about the age of 15, knew from research what qualifications I needed and what
experience I needed to get me where I am now. So I knew that about the age
of 15…….The next step is to be a member of the Chartered Institute of
Logistics and Transport so that I can network, meet people, go to the
presentations to learn more about my field. (Reese, supply chain manager,
College of HE)
For others, like Derek, a propensity to plan had developed during the final stages of
higher education, when he, like many other respondents, had started to think seriously
about entering full-time employment:
2
All respondents are referred to by pseudonyms and the university they attended is referred to by
‘type’ only (i.e. Oxbridge, London, Redbrick, Campus, Post-92 or College of HE).
The real focus came in my fourth year, in my final year, when I didn’t get a
[legal] training contract and I thought, right, I really need to sit down and work
out how this game works and try to get myself a job. (Derek, solicitor,
London)
In his research on young people’s decision making processes, Hodkinson (1998)
identifies various ‘turning points’ at which ‘horizons for action’ undergo significant
change: structural turning points, which are determined by institutions and other
external structures; self-initiated turning points, in which the individual is
instrumental in precipitating a transformation in response to a range of factors within
his or her life; and, finally, turning points which are forced on some by the action of
others (p.101). Our research suggests that similar shifts can occur in young people’s
propensity to plan, as well as in the substantive content of the plans themselves.
The majority of the respondents who ‘planned’ in this way seemed not only to enjoy
making decisions about their lives, but also were able to articulate specific reasons for
behaving in this way (such as the need to take a more proactive stance in the labour
market, as suggested by some of the quotations above). A small number, however,
indicated that detailed planning was also a form of security to them, and that a lack of
forward planning would be a source of stress.
I think it was the end of February I did get that job, so that was all sorted
before I started finals and everything, so that was organised…..I mean some of
my friends were going into finals and they’d no idea what, you know, they
didn’t even have a job for afterwards….and I couldn’t have coped with that
kind of stress. I mean I need to know what I’m doing. (Sue, librarian,
Oxbridge)
Only one of this group of graduates thought that there might be any disadvantages
associated with this approach to decision-making: Leanna (teacher, Campus)
wondered whether her inclination to form detailed plans for the future had closed
down her options too early.
The course was always going to be English and drama because I was always
going to do a degree first and then my teacher training second…in retrospect I
wish it had been something else. I suppose I did get a bit narrow minded about
things, I think, maybe, but it’s the choices you make, I suppose.
In many ways, this evidence supports the conclusions reached by Anderson et al.
(2005) – that many young adults do engage in fairly detailed life planning processes,
and are comfortable working within long time perspectives. Similar points have been
made by Holdsworth and Morgan (2005): on the basis of their study of transitions to
adulthood in the UK, Spain and Norway, they suggest that the considerable variation
in the sequencing of life events both within and between countries can, in general, be
seen to support the claims of ‘do-it-yourself’ biographies (p.150). These findings also
accord with Sweetman’s (2003) contention that reflexive engagement, life planning
and ongoing reconstructions of self-identity are ‘characteristic of certain forms of
contemporary habitus’ and may, in some cases (as a result of norms within the
workplace, personal relationships and consumer culture), be unreflexively adopted
(p.537). Amongst our sample, at least, the majority of respondents provided little
evidence to support the assertion that the rapid processes of social change and the
fragmentation of experiences deemed to be characteristic of late modern society have
made it ‘extremely difficult to plan for the future or manage lives (subjectively or
objectively) in any meaningful sense’ (Furlong and Cartmel, 2006, p.8).
The Resisters
As noted above, a number of studies have argued that young adults commonly show a
strong disinclination to plan for the medium- and long-term (and, in some cases, even
the short-term). However, the research by Anderson and colleagues (2005), which
draws on a larger and more representative sample than previous work, has suggested
that many more young adults may engage in such life planning than has previously
been thought. While our data does generally support that of Anderson et al., it also
raises some interesting questions about those who remain opposed to any form of life
planning. As discussed above, in Anderson et al.’s study, the small group who did not
engage in any form of planning were the most disadvantaged – typically, those on low
incomes, with children, or whose plans had failed them in the past. In our study,
however, the non-planners exhibited markedly different social characteristics. Indeed,
amongst the 90 young adults involved in our project, it was typically the most
privileged, with the highest levels of social and cultural capital who were most
reluctant to form detailed life plans. A fifth of our sample (18 respondents) expressed
an active dislike of such forms of planning. The quotations below provide some
examples of how these generally privileged individuals believed they ‘got by’ without
any particular plans:
Interviewer:
You didn’t have a career plan?
Charlie:
No. Still don’t!
Interviewer:
….OK. Plans for future in work, education and leisure terms?
Charlie:
Not really, no. (Charlie, teacher, Oxbridge)
I still don’t have a career path planned out or a target or anything like that.
(Oscar, IT trainer, London)
My decision about where to go to university wasn’t really a decision, it just
fell into place. I didn’t like decisions, and I don’t like decisions now so that
was just, that just happened and I think now I still fall into things. I’m very
much happier not knowing what it is I’m going to do…..I still get into things
by accident. (Margaret, Redbrick)
It is also the case that, for many of these young adults, a disinclination to plan had
been a long-standing feature of their lives so far. Thus, as success had often been
attained without much planning, these respondents saw no need to change their
approach to achieve similar levels of success in the future. Indeed, several described
how active planning had not been necessary as opportunities had ‘just appeared’
and/or certain decisions had been ‘assumed’. This was particularly evident amongst
those who had attended Oxbridge:
In a way, kind of, the decision was made for me rather than very consciously.
It wasn’t something I had really set my heart on…so I ended up going to
[Oxbridge] almost by accident. That sounds awful, doesn’t it? …..With
hindsight it seems like quite a nice logical progression [to the PhD] but along
the way I didn’t have a game plan at all…..at the time it sort of felt like fate
was stepping in at certain points and directing. Sort of things came into place
rather than me making them happen. (Jayne, PhD student, Oxbridge)
I certainly never intended to become an academic. That was definitely never
the intention, it just kind of happened. (Celia, post-doctoral researcher
Oxbridge)
I had no idea what I wanted to do. It was just getting the degree that was the
important thing. You decide what you want to do afterwards. Doesn’t make a
lot of sense really! (Emily, development director, Oxbridge)
It was all very vague, to be honest. That’s one of the, that’s probably one of
themes through my [life], that I never really knew what I was going to do….in
the end I think it would be safe to say that I never did exactly decide on a
career (Alice, executive administrator, Oxbridge)
It is possible that this reluctance to reveal strategic planning may be part of a wider
and well-documented cultural disinclination to acknowledge effort, investment and
underlying resources (e.g. Mac an Ghaill, 1994) – either to the interviewer or to
oneself. However, within this particular sample, this seems an unlikely explanation
given the respondents’ reflexiveness, apparent willingness to reveal aspects of their
lives that did not always portray them in a positive light (such as periods of
unemployment, lack of success in gaining a desired job and difficulties faced whilst at
university) and, in some cases, their pejorative view of planning per se.
Possible explanations
One possible hypothesis is that these young adults felt little need to plan because of a
secure and highly advantaged family background, which they believed they would be
able to reproduce with little effort. However, as Table II illustrates, it is certainly not
the case that all ‘resisters’ came from privileged backgrounds; indeed, only six of the
eighteen had been educated in the private sector (and only three of the eight Oxbridge
graduates). Moreover, the occupational profile of these respondents’ parents is
similarly mixed: while solicitors, doctors and lecturers are represented, so are
considerably lower status jobs. For example, Emily’s father was a sales representative
and Alice’s father, a truck driver. This suggests that their disinclination to plan cannot
be explained simply with reference to high levels of cultural, social and/or economic
capital originating from within the family. Furthermore, from their narratives it is
clear that relatively few were brought up with parental expectations that they would
attend a high status university or that they would enter a particular occupation on
graduation.
[Insert Table II about here]
It is also possible that the lifestyle circumstances of our respondents, in the years
immediately after graduation, had some bearing on their propensity to plan for the
future. In line with the characteristics of the overall sample, the large majority of the
‘resisters’ were single (14 of the 18) and were living either by themselves or in a
shared household with friends. One ‘resister’ was married (Rita) and three had
resident partners at the time of the interview or shortly before (Janet, Sarina and
Stewart). None of this group had any children, which again reflected the broader
sample3. It may be argued that it is the onset of responsibilities to a partner and/or
children that encourage one to engage in strategic life planning. For some of our
resisters, recognition that the carefree nature of their current lives (as they perceived
it) would not last indefinitely may have driven some of the emphasis they put on
enjoying opportunities for spontaneity (and resisting pressures to plan) while they
were able. This is alluded to in extracts from interviews with Jackie and Zeyar:
I kind of thought you know I’m young and I don’t have a mortgage and if I
don’t do it [leaving the UK at short notice to work in Greece] now will I regret
not doing it. (Jackie, Oxbridge)
I don't have any particular plans, and I spend my time quite happily taking
things as they come, maybe trying to develop new skills. I'm not in a rush to
get back to full-time work. I've got this strange idea that while I'm young I
might as well enjoy myself, and then when I get a bit older I'll do a bit more
work. (Zeyar, unemployed, Oxbridge)
However, amongst those four resisters who were (or who had been) in long-term
relationships, such commitments did not seem to have prompted any planning.
Indeed, the narratives of Stewart, Sarina and Rita suggest that, for them, their
3
Only one of our 90 respondents had any children.
relationships may have actually discouraged them from this kind of forward planning.
For example, while Stewart described how, on graduation, he had just followed his
girlfriend to Leeds and taken whatever work he could find, Sarina and Rita both
outlined how they tended to prioritise enjoying the here-and-now with their partners,
rather than making plans for the future. These examples show how lifestyle
circumstances had some bearing on some of the resisters’ disinclination to plan.
However, the nature of this influence operated in different ways: for some, an absence
of financial and personal commitments allowed them to act in a more spontaneous
manner without the need for planning; for others, however, commitment to a partner
was itself seen a partial reason for not engaging in strategic life planning.
Nevertheless, given that the lifestyle circumstances of the resisters were broadly
typical of the other respondents in the sample, it seems likely that there are other
reasons, beyond the personal, which can help to explain the differences between the
two groups.
In a small number of cases, some of the explanations that were given to justify this
reluctance to plan appeared to be related to wider beliefs about the futility of
planning. For example, several young adults claimed that they had stopped making
plans because they rarely came to fruition:
I’ve stopped sort of planning my future as such because, all the kind of things
I have done, certainly since university…it was never planned but it happened.
The internet thing was never planned, going into broadcasting was never
planned, but it happened. It worked out, so I have stopped making plans,
because they don’t happen but things usually work out. (Max, journalist,
Oxbridge)
In line with some of the arguments made in the literature, and alluded to above, others
claimed that the overwhelming choice of options available to young adults in
contemporary society was bewildering and could seriously impair their ability to put
together coherent plans for the future:
…That’s actually a bit of a problem for my generation because you’re almost
spoilt for choice, you don’t have to stick at one career and you don’t have to
be trained in anything….and it’s crippling us all. I mean, like literally, you
know, people don’t know what they’re doing with themselves, they get, yeah,
getting totally lost….we’ve got too much choice. (Hayley, marketing manager,
London)
While Sarina did not share Hayley’s view of the ‘crippling’ array of choices open to
her, she did believe that the large number of available options (in terms of career,
learning opportunities and also broader patterns of living), had made long-term
planning redundant. Indeed, she believed that drawing up plans at this point in her
life would be likely to restrict her options later:
I get bored really easily….I’m not an absolutist either and the thought of
having to pick something that I have to do for the rest of my life, it’s just not
going to happen. I know that whatever I do isn’t going to be for the rest of my
life because probably in five years time I’m going to change my mind again
because I have done [that] like, pretty much, well, throughout my life really.
(Sarina, communications co-ordinator, Campus).
Although some of these explanations help to explain why some individuals were
disinclined to engage in strategic life planning, the strongest correlation appears to be
with type of higher education institution attended and also, to some extent,
identification as an academic ‘high flier’ at a relatively early point in one’s
educational career. As Table II suggests, there were clear differences by institution
attended, with a large majority of the resisters having graduated from the higher status
universities (including eight who had attended Oxbridge). Indeed, the institutional
profile of this group may be explained by assumptions they were making (not
necessarily correctly) that with a degree from a high status institution there is less
need to make detailed plans to secure one’s place in the labour market than if one had
graduated from a less prestigious university. While those from more disadvantaged
backgrounds may feel the pointlessness of planning, the disinclination to plan on
behalf of those from more privileged backgrounds may reflect the assumption that
they will not be unduly disadvantaged in life as a result. This is suggested in
Hayley’s narrative when she explains that, as she went to university at ‘London’, she
believed she would be better positioned in the labour market than if she had gone to a
new university and could therefore ‘worry about the career later’.
As we collected data on only the first five years post-graduation, it is difficult to
arrive at any firm conclusions about whether these assumptions on behalf of the
privileged ‘resisters’ were justified. Nevertheless, the early careers of the 18 young
adults in this sub-sample suggest a mixed picture. There were certainly some for
whom transitions from school to university and then from university into fulfilling
and well-paid employment had been relatively straightforward. The advantages
associated with having attended a high status institution are also well rehearsed in the
literature. For example, Smetherham’s (2006) statistical analysis has shown the
advantage of holding a degree from an elite university compared to a similar
qualification from a middle- or low-ranking institution, when competing for
traditional graduate jobs and places on graduate training schemes. Nevertheless,
stories of labour market success were not told by all our resisters. Indeed, some had
markedly different experiences. For example, Alice (Oxbridge) described
considerable disappointment with her career to date:
I found myself thinking, ‘Oh God, what am I doing here? I’m wasting my
life.’ I’ve got this, you know, I’m really intelligent, I could be out doing
something, you know, much more productive, much more helpful to society
and here I am…in an administrative department of this college.
This complexity is also reflected in other studies. Brown and Hesketh’s (2004)
research into the employment practices of high status graduate recruiters has
highlighted the importance of personal capital – a combination of ‘hard currencies’
such as educational qualifications and work experience and ‘soft currencies’ including
interpersonal skills and charisma. This would suggest that graduates need to exercise
considerable caution in assuming that a good degree from a high status institution will
confer automatic advantage within the labour market.
These less positive stories indicate that the social capital and high status qualifications
offered by universities such as Oxbridge and London cannot, in all cases, compensate
for an unwillingness to plan. However, it is of course impossible to determine whether
these particular individuals would have been any more successful in achieving their
goals if they had planned. Perhaps more interestingly, it suggests that a reluctance to
plan may be quite deeply embedded, such that even negative labour market
experiences do not cause one to change one’s approach. It is also worth highlighting
that there were a number of examples of respondents who had attended lower status
HEIs who had engaged in planning processes and were subsequently more successful
in securing well-paid graduate employment than those resisters mentioned above.
However, on the basis of this qualitative data it is hard to determine the extent to
which their relative success was related to their propensity to plan.
Despite these questions that remain unanswered, our respondents’ narratives provide
an important contrast to those reported in other research, which have suggested that it
is primarily unhappy life experiences that discourage young adults from engaging in
life planning. Indeed, Anderson et al. argue that while a failure to achieve ambitions
in the past does not necessarily affect one’s future ambitions, it does limit willingness
to plan for the future, especially for the long-run. They go on to argue that such
unwillingness to plan for the future is often associated with disadvantage; moreover,
‘many of those with very short timespans of planning are in multiply stressed
situations where any possibility of planning for the future is severely hampered by
lack of resources and other factors’ (p.148). We would argue that, on the basis of our
research, a similarly short timespan of planning is shared by young adults at the
opposite end of the social spectrum, whose lives have been characterised by academic
success and a high level of privilege.
Conclusion
In his insightful analysis of the relationship between policy and practice, Holford
(2007) points to the limitations of Edwards’ (2002) theorisation of ‘governmentality’
and the capacity of the state (and its various agencies) to shape ‘enterprising selves’
among its citizens. In part, Holford’s critique is based on detailed empirical evidence
which, he argues, demonstrates that a significant number of ‘active citizens’ are
engaged in vigorously contesting official agendas. While accepting this general point
– that current policy produces a variety of responses among citizens, not a simple
‘responsibilisation’ – we have shown that in our sample of graduates, a majority of
respondents were engaged in the kind of life planning (for the medium- and/or the
long-term) which is at least congruent with the argument that young adults are taking
substantial responsibility for their own life choices, along the lines suggested by
Edwards. It also provides some support for Giddens’ contention that reflexivelyordered life planning has, for many young adults, become a ‘central feature of the
structuring of self-identity’ (1991, p.5). In this way, our findings reflect those of
Anderson et al. and suggest that, on the whole, young adults in contemporary Britain
do appear to feel in control of their lives, and are engaged in planning for the future.
However, we have also demonstrated that those not engaged in reflexive forms of
planning are not just the most disadvantaged in society, as Anderson et al.’s study
suggests. Instead, we have argued that the most privileged young adults are also
largely immune from the pressure to engage in strategic life planning. We have
demonstrated how, within this sample at least, there was a strong association between
having had a privileged ‘learning career’ (such as attending a high status university
and identifying as an ‘academic high flier’) and a disinclination to form detailed plans
for the future. In part, we would suggest that this appeared to be related to a strong
sense of ontological security on the part of these young adults and the confidence to
resist what Giddens terms ‘an increasingly dominant temporal outlook’ (1991, p.87).
What has not been possible within this study is to explore the impact of life planning
(or a rejection of such planning) on the life chances of young graduates. While we
have suggested that there was an association between having had a privileged learning
career and a disinclination to plan, we do not have a sufficiently strong evidence base
on which to assess whether this failure to plan disadvantaged the young adults in any
way. Similarly, we cannot make any firms claims about whether those who did plan
gained any advantage (in the labour market or elsewhere) over their peers. Indeed, we
consider this to be a fruitful area for further research to help extend the debate.
Anderson et al. (2005) argue that one of the advantages of their methodology – using
questionnaires as opposed to interviews – is that they minimised the likelihood that
respondents would conform to any peer pressure about hedonism and a pejorative
view of planning (perhaps associated with perceptions about the ‘dullness’ of
adulthood). While we believe that the in-depth nature of our interviews and the
rapport we established with respondents makes it unlikely that significant life
planning would be concealed, we do acknowledge that there are dominant cultural
scripts associated with such activities. However, we would speculate that: these
operate in different ways among different groups of young people; the value (positive,
negative or neutral) attached to planning varies similarly; and a propensity to plan
may well change over the lifecourse. Whether the resistance to forming plans for the
future demonstrated by our most privileged respondents persists into later adulthood,
or whether it is likely to change as part of a wider refashioning of self-identity at some
point in the future, therefore remains unclear.
Acknowledgements
We are very grateful to: the two anonymous referees for their very helpful comments
on an earlier version of this paper; the 90 young graduates who gave up their time to
be interviewed for the project; and the ESRC for funding the research (RES-000-220662).
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Table I: Gender of respondents, by HEI attended
Higher education institutions (placed in
Women
Men
Oxbridge
8
7
London
8
7
Redbrick
10
5
Campus
14
1
Post-92
11
4
College of HE
7
8
TOTAL
58
32
order of typical league table position)
Table II: Characteristics of the ‘Resisters’
Name
HEI
Degree
Compulsory
Father’s
Mother’s
attended
subject
education (state
occupation
occupation
Current job
or private)
Jayne
Oxbridge
History
State (grammar)
Lecturer
Social worker
PhD student
Celia
Oxbridge
Geology
Private
Health and
Occupational
Post-doctoral
safety
therapist
researcher
Teacher
Deputy
manager
Emily
Oxbridge
Chemistry
State (grammar)
Sales
representative
development
director
Jackie
Alice
Oxbridge
Oxbridge
Maths
Physics
State
Consultant
(comprehensive)
paediatrician
State
HGV driver
(comprehensive)
Charlie
Oxbridge
Archaeology
None
Finance manager
Shop assistant
College
(part-time)
administrator
Private
Pilot
Teacher
Teacher
State (grammar)
Teacher
Secretary
Recruitment
and
anthropology
Stewart
Oxbridge
Geology
consultant
Zeyar
Oxbridge
Maths and
computing
Private
Doctor
Doctor
Unemployed
Francis
Hayley
London
London
History
Geography
State
Teacher
(comprehensive)
(deceased)
Private
University
Lecturer
Museum curator
Architect
Marketing
dean
Oscar
London
French
Private
manager
Senior
Residential
manager,
warden
IT trainer
social services
Sam
Terry
Redbrick
Redbrick
Maths and
State
Joiner and
Delivery
Research
chemistry
(comprehensive)
carpenter
personnel
chemist
Maths and
State (grammar)
Financial
NHS clerical
Financial
director
worker
services case
finance
officer
Sarina
Campus
Philosophy
Private
Hairdresser
Catering
Internal
assistant
communications
co-ordinator
Joseph
Post-92
Computing
State
science
(comprehensive)
Lecturer
None
Developer and
director, web
company
Nicola
Post-92
Management
State
(Arts)
(comprehensive)
Solicitor
Counsellor
Self-employed
development
consultant
Janet
College
Law
of HE
Rita
College
Performance
State
Heavy plant
(comprehensive)
operator
State
Coppersmith
Cook
Assistant lending
manager, bank
Clerical
Project assistant
of HE
Studies
(comprehensive)
officer