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Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty, by Jennifer M. Silva
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What does it mean to grow up today as working-class young adults? How does the economic and social instability left in the wake of neoliberalism shape their identities, their understandings of the American Dream, and their futures?
Coming Up Short illuminates the transition to adulthood for working-class men and women. Moving away from easy labels such as the "Peter Pan generation," Jennifer Silva reveals the far bleaker picture of how the erosion of traditional markers of adulthood-marriage, a steady job, a house of one's own-has changed what it means to grow up as part of the post-industrial working class. Based on one hundred interviews with working-class people in two towns-Lowell, Massachusetts, and Richmond, Virginia-Silva sheds light on their experience of heightened economic insecurity, deepening inequality, and uncertainty about marriage and family. Silva argues that, for these men and women, coming of age means coming to terms with the absence of choice. As possibilities and hope contract, moving into adulthood has been re-defined as a process of personal struggle-an adult is no longer someone with a small home and a reliable car, but someone who has faced and overcome personal demons to reconstruct a transformed self. Indeed, rather than turn to politics to restore the traditional working class, this generation builds meaning and dignity through the struggle to exorcise the demons of familial abuse, mental health problems, addiction, or betrayal in past relationships. This dramatic and largely unnoticed shift reduces becoming an adult to solitary suffering, self-blame, and an endless seeking for signs of progress.
This powerfully written book focuses on those who are most vulnerable-young, working-class people, including African-Americans, women, and single parents-and reveals what, in very real terms, the demise of the social safety net means to their fragile hold on the American Dream.
- Sales Rank: #252277 in Books
- Brand: Silva, Jennifer M.
- Published on: 2015-05-15
- Released on: 2015-05-15
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 6.10" h x .50" w x 9.10" l, .62 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 208 pages
Review
"Impeccably researched and skillfully articulated, Silva's work is a timely primer on the current state of blue-collar Millennials." --Publishers Weekly
"In the tradition of Studs Terkel's Working and Lillian Rubin's Worlds of Pain, this poignant and powerful book takes us inside the lives of today's working class. With remarkable empathy and painful detail, Silva illuminates the personal stories of young workers with no unions, no pensions, no assets, and little hope for more than unstable low-wage jobs. Rather than blaming neoliberal capitalism for their precarious futures, she finds that these young people blame themselves. A smart and compelling page-turner, Coming Up Short is a truly masterful work." --Sharon Hays, author of Flat Broke with Children
"Capitalism and its devastating effects are best examined at the bottom of the social order, where men and women struggle with unemployment, with intimacy, and with forming self-respect. Coming Up Short studies working-class lives from a new perspective: that of the management of risk. It is a masterful contribution to our understanding of how capitalism creates the many anxieties that make up our lives." --Eva Illouz, Professor of Sociology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
"This outstanding book offers a heartbreaking account of America's 21st century working class as they transition to adulthood. Dreaming of a life of college education, steady well-paying jobs, marriage, home-ownership, and children, they confront a reality of student loan debt, low-paying service sector jobs, unstable relationships, and a changed landscape of individual risk and self-blame. Silva's extraordinary ability to connect with these young people brings their perspectives to life, and her sharp analyses link their lives to wider social currents. Written with a rare combination of empathy and clear-eyed reasoning, Silva exemplifies sociology at its very best. This should be required reading for every young adult in America, and everyone who loves a young adult." --Mary Waters, M.E. Zukerman Professor of Sociology, Harvard University
"If you care about our country's future, ponder the compelling personal histories that Jennifer Silva portrays in this impressive book. Silva describes with grace and sensitivity how the economic and social changes that have rocked America in the last half century reverberate in the lives of young working class adults, radically isolated and striving to craft a sense of self in a world without security, without solidarity, and without trust. It is a chastening tale." --Robert D. Putnam, Professor of Public Policy, Harvard University, and author of Bowling Alone
"[A] brief yet devastating book that blends academic analysis and oral history to put a new face on well-documented trends that are more usually described in the abstract." --Boston Globe
"Silva has made a major contribution to understanding where young adults are coming from, what influences them, and what they consider to be common sense." --The American Conservative
"Fascinating" --Feministing.com
"[A]n enjoyable read and raises important issues that we generally overlook." --Washington Independent Review of Books
"Coming Up Short is a brief, but powerful, update of the status, difficulties, behaviors and distresses that characterize the lives of young working class adults. Based on in-depth interviews with 100 subjects, both White and African American, the book is -- among other things -- a reminder of the power of qualitative research, where the subjects' statements and the vignettes about them poignantly document a number of themes in a way that statistical tables could not... Coming Up Short is highly recommended for sociologists and social welfare students and academics alike. It informs in telling detail the difficult circumstances and self-perceptions of a significant portion of the American population. It is also a window into how the 'helping professions' have influenced the thinking of young adults and suggests that those professions need help their clients see their troubles in broader terms than they apparently currently do." --Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare
"I enjoyed reading this book. It will stay in my memory long after it returns to my bookshelf, although I suspect it will not stay there long. For sociologists of youth and adulthood, like me, it contains many insights that spur the sociological imagination. But above all, the young working-class lives that Silva enables us to hear will continue to haunt me. They may be "coming up short" in an economic and social system that promises much, yet often delivers little, but to my mind and throughout Silva's book, they are adults with important messages to convey and lives to lead." --American Journal of Sociology
About the Author
Jennifer M. Silva is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Bucknell University.
Most helpful customer reviews
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
Struggling in the modern world
By Phil Terrana
One cannot help but be aware of the big problems facing this nation and the even bigger debate going on to find solutions to these problems. At the core of the struggle are those individuals and families trying to hold on to what they have acquired in the face of lost jobs and a collapsing housing market; and the 20 and 30-year olds trying to stake their place in the American economy.
In regard to the younger generation, "Coming Up Short" adds greatly to the debate by putting human faces on the problem. The people Jennifer Silva interviewed face a myriad of problems--some the result of their doings and some through no fault of their own. What they all seem to share is a belief that they must endure these struggles alone.
They have lost faith in the idea of a common struggle because time and again society (whether it be the job market, education, the military, the government or even their own families) has let them down. They have chosen to go it alone because they think it is their only choice. Their parent and grandparents grew up in societies with more effective safety nets and took advantage of them.
The people Silva interviews are not lazy, ignorant, or unmotivated. In overcoming their own demons, they demonstrate personal strengths that have throughout our history been the cornerstone to our success.
What holds them back is a thirty-year movement that seems to push the idea that successful people do it on their own. For 30 years we have worried about investors and have let workers fall by the wayside. Those already in the workforce during this period have, by making adjustments, been able to survive this assault although they won't come away unscathed. This book, on a very personal level, demonstrates what those trying to get into the game are going up against.
As a nation we must stop looking at issues of living wages, deregulation, universal health care, student loans, and a whole host of others from a strictly cost effective point of view. Jennifer Silva drives home very well the point that there are real people at the heart of all these issues.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
Not an easy read, or as well organized as I would have wished, however, ...
By David Ecale
This is an important book to read. It explains (in a somewhat disorganized way) why the children who are & have recently come of age since 2000 (the Millennials) have had such a rough time. In effect, they have mostly tried to ride up on the coattails of the Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) successes & have been stomped on by the changing society & reduction in opportunities in today's world of work. My take:
1) College: It used to be a ticket to a better life. Many companies still require a college degree of some type to be promoted above entry level jobs. The problem is that when my father graduated, about 6% of the workforce had graduated from college, when I graduated, it was about 25%. Today it is trending much higher & as a consequence, a college degree's value is greatly discounted. Add to this, college financial aid really isn't as it places an unsustainable financial burden on those who can least afford to pay.
2) Debt (both college & other): This problem is exacerbated by the fact that due to prior abuses, congress has removed student debt from the classes of debt that can be discharged in a bankruptcy. Thus the quote from the book, "...that mean old lady, Sally Mae..." rings as true as the albatross that was hung around the Ancient Mariner's neck. It is a cross that must be born without relief, except in extreme circumstances, or death. The rest of the debts also overwhelm today's Millennials.
3) Perpetual childhood: Unlike those of my generation, who were forced to go to war & had a chance to still find a decent job afterwords, today's Millennials are stuck with a declining economy and few good paying jobs. (No matter what the government's economists say, this economy is still declining, just like it did in the '30s when the government's economists denied the protracted extension of the depression.) They are also afflicted with an ambivalence that for lack of a better term, I'd call victim-hood.
Finally, the hollowing out of the paths to upward mobility are having a devastating effect on them. Do all the right things & the paths to upward mobility are still closed out to them. The classic middle class jobs: manager, union journeyman, highly skilled technician, are all being reduced or are being shipped overseas.
She summarizes with some ideas & polemics that may help, but in the end, I believe that she is still puzzled about how we can pull our society out of this malaise.
A personal note: These folks are our children. If they can't attain a good adulthood, I fear that us older folks will suffer a reduced retirement as we are forced to support them way into their 30s & 40s. A time when we ourselves would need their support! Finally, an example of how ugly things are, think of this: Watch TV. Just look at the number of Reverse Mortgage ads that are out there. We, as the older generation, are given the opportunity to leave our children & grand-children, not the family house, but the requirement to move out all of our junk (at their cost) when we kick the bucket!
This review is for the hardcover edition as borrowed through the Inter-Library Loan program.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Beautifully-written, fresh, and important read about working-class youth
By M
This is -- without a doubt -- the most convincing account of young adults I've ever read. I've always felt the discussions in the media about the "lazy" Millennial generation were overly general and implicitly classist. Silva's research finally gives a voice to this often overlooked segment of young adults. It's no wonder these young adults delay romance, distrust their communities, and have so little going for them. Make sure to read the chapter on the mood economy -- a fresh and interesting take on emotions! This is a timely, beautifully-written, and important read.
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