Generational change and intergenerational relationships in the context of the asset economy

Abstract

The study of youth is central to efforts to understanding continuity and change and the reproduction of inequality. There are longstanding debates about how to account for class in shaping young people’s lives in the context of social change, including recent calls for a greater focus on political economy in the sociological study of youth. This article considers these debates in the context of the rise of the asset economy, developing a generational framework for conceptualizing young adulthood and shifting intergenerational relations in the context of the growing importance of assets to economic stratification. I propose that the shifting interaction of income, assets and family transfers ..