Gigs, hustles and hope: mixed livelihoods for global youth beyond the wage

Abstract

Alongside contestations over the availability, quality, recognition and rejection of wage work, research shows that most young people would like and need a regular income and they desire security in various spheres of life, including work. Yet the scarcity of secure employment and its generally unattractive qualities lead to other forms of youth livelihood production. Particularly in the global south and increasingly in the global north, young people's diverse practices characterized as multiple livelihood strategies and diverse income streams, hustling and 'kukiya-kiya'- like a key picking a lock, show how youth improvise with available resources and use wage labour in ways that are not all-encompassing. This situation is significantly shaped by changes in capitalist production since the 1970s that have led to the reduction, de-regulation and 're-characterisation' of many secure jobs worldwide, particularly affecting young people, although the notion of a fully wage-employed population has never been a realistic scenario in many places. In these fluctuating global contexts, the case study of South Africa provides some insights into the future of work in a range of places. This country had an official youth unemployment rate of 74% during the pandemic, produced by an economic history where a few large conglomerates dominate each sector, mixed with a smaller informal sector and lower rates of self-employment than most of the global South. Against this backdrop I draw on a set of ethnographies to ask 'what are youth already doing', as a starting point to unpack how they can best be supported to generate meaningful livelihoods, on their own terms, as they negotiate uncertain futures.