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While Australia has experienced low COVID-19 case numbers relative to other countries, it has witnessed severe economic consequences in the wake of the pandemic. The hospitality industry, in which young adults are overrepresented, has been among the most affected industries. In this article, we present findings from an interview and a digital methods-based study of young hospitality workers in the Australian cities of Melbourne and Newcastle who lost shifts or employment due to the pandemic. We argue that the participants’ ability to cope with the loss of work was mediated by the degree of family support that they could access, with some experiencing the pandemic as an inconvenience, while others suffered extreme financial hardship. Findings from this study show that the most severe impacts of the pandemic play out along pre-existing lines of inequality and marginality, causing the most severe consequences for those who were already most vulnerable to them.

House prices have risen sharply in most Australian capital cities in recent years. Due to Australia’s strong identity as a homeowning nation and the related tendency towards entering the housing ma...

Research addressing intergenerational financial assistance is currently uncovering a key space in which the familial transmission of advantage and disadvantage plays out. However, there is a gap between studies addressing the relationship between intergenerational assistance and outcomes in areas such as education and employment, and those addressing intergenerational assistance with entry into homeownership. The former have not addressed the impact of assistance on housing outcomes in any depth, while the latter have focused predominantly on single instances of support. As a result, little is known about the relationship between intergenerational support received over the so-called ‘transition’ to adulthood and support received specifically to aid entry into homeownership. This article presents data from ‘housing pathway’ interviews conducted with 33 young adult homeowners in Australia and in so doing begins to uncover the complex relationship between financial assistance with homeownership and previous instances of financial assistance. Drawing on the finding that homeownership appeared, in some cases, to be facilitated by seemingly unrelated forms of assistance, the paper argues for a revised conceptualisation of the relationship between independence and dependence in the transition to adulthood. Specifically, rather than understanding the achievement of adult milestones as symbolic of growing independence, it is argued that these milestones are, in some cases, achieved only through dependence on protracted forms of support. This claim challenges a dichotomous notion of dependence and independence by instead putting forward the concept of independence through dependence.

Young adults’ use of individualized explanations for conditions that are structural in origin is well documented. However, recent scholarship has contended that young adults are often more aware of the macro-scale forces that shape their life chances than has previously been acknowledged. We build upon this work by drawing on findings from focus groups conducted with 19 Australian young adults aged 27–28 in which they were called upon to discuss issues and experiences relevant to both their own lives and those of their age cohort more broadly. We find that although the participants co-constructed explanatory narratives that positioned their cohort within a specific socio-historical context, they nevertheless drew chiefly upon individualized explanations and coping strategies to understand these structural changes when the conversation moved to micro-level experiences. We contend that this disjuncture is attributable not to a lack of knowledge or reflexivity but to a perceived lack of social recognition.

Recent years have witnessed an explosion of interest in hope in the disciplines of sociology and anthropology. Although expressions of hope on varying scales have been considered, this article focuses on recent scholarship addressing micro, often individual experiences of hoping. Such experiences of hope dovetail with a recent strand in utopian studies focusing on material and practice-based considerations and drawing utopian energies into everyday life. Working between these points of homology, this article considers the relationship between small-scale expressions of hope and utopian thinking. Literature addressing diverse subject matter is compared on the basis of its conceptualizations of hope. The outcome is twofold. First, common understandings of hope are identified in research addressing diverse topics. Second, Darren Webb's typology of modes of hope and their relationship to utopian thinking is expanded upon, and ultimately, a dichotomous understanding of modes of hope as either utopian or anti-/non-utopian is challenged.

Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) was recently introduced to psychiatric nosology to describe a group of patients who have avoidant or restrictive eating behaviours that are not motivated by a body image disturbance or a desire to be thinner. This scoping review aimed to systematically assess the extent and nature of the ARFID literature, to identify gaps in current understanding, and to make recommendations for further study. Following an extensive database search, 291 unique references were identified. When matched against pre-determined eligibility criteria, 78 full-text publications from 14 countries were found to report primary, empirical data relating to ARFID. This literature was synthesised and categorised into five subject areas according to the central area of focus: diagnosis and assessment, clinical characteristics, treatment interventions, clinical outcomes, and prevalence. The current evidence base supports ARFID as a distinct clinical entity, but there is a limited understanding in all areas. Several possible avenues for further study are indicated, with an emphasis placed on first parsing this disorder's heterogeneous presentation. A better understanding of the varied mechanisms which drive food avoidance and/or restriction will inform the development of targeted treatment interventions, refine screening tools and impact clinical outcomes.

Although residential mobility has been studied at length, residential immobility has been addressed comparatively rarely. In this article, we draw on interviews conducted with 35 participants aged 38–39 in 2012 in Victoria, Australia, in which they were asked to reflect on their lives over the previous 20 years, focusing specifically on those who have remained in or returned to the areas in which they grew up. We focus on the role of nostalgia in the participants' experiences of and relationships with place, finding that far from signifying a purely, or even predominantly, melancholic experience their expressions of nostalgia held the power to enliven the present, even while anchoring them to the past. We contend that nostalgia can form an integral part of practices that reconcile continuity and change and produce feelings of familiarity and comfort, which buffer individuals against the uncertainties associated with wider contexts shaped by rapid social change.

Recent scholarly research has claimed that young people are predominantly concerned with their immediate ‘horizon of planning’, resulting in an outlook upon the future that is dominated by present-day concerns. By distinguishing between choices and plans, on the one hand, and hope and faith, on the other, this article analyses how young people relate to the future through their attitudes about responsibility and technology in order to complicate this narrative. The data are drawn from an interview project in which 28 young adults (aged 18–34) discuss both their own future and a general idea of the future of society. Two key findings are discussed. Firstly, respondents are found to place faith in the potential of technology to mitigate future predicaments, and secondly, respondents are found to ascribe mystical or magical qualities to technology. Drawing on these findings, this article suggests that the oft-cited attitude that technology will develop in time to meet the needs of the future does not...

This chapter considers how the strategies for coping with long-term uncertainties employed by the respondents in the study informing this book can be conceptualised. The discussion focuses specifically on the use of hope in coping with uncertainty due to both the prominence of hope in the findings, and the prevailing association between uncertainty and fear which has, until recently, sidelined hope as a serious object of study in this area. Empirical and theoretical studies of hope are used to address issues such as the relationship that hope may have with agency or action. Ultimately, this chapter concludes that hope has utility for future thinking not because it has a specific moral orientation, but because it is comparatively more productive than other expressions such as denial.

While the previous chapter presented an overview of popular theoretical accounts which have laid claim to the character of the contemporary future horizon, due to their macro-focus, these accounts do not allow for consideration of the relationship between perceptions of the future and individuals or subjectivities. As such, this chapter considers how subjectivities can be theorised in the context of the study that informs this book. After considering a number of competing theoretical accounts, the work of Margaret Archer is chosen for the purposes of this work. Drawing on Archer’s modes of reflexivity, this chapter considers how—and indeed if—outlooks upon the future may be related to specific types of selves.

Individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often grow up with negative messages surrounding their abilities and may experience adverse outcomes throughout their lives. Despite this, by adulthood, those with ADHD often find that they are left without adequate support from services. This review explores the relationship between self-esteem and ADHD in adulthood with a view to outlining needs and potential opportunities in terms of service provision. Twelve databases were searched for relevant literature published between 1980 and 2013 using terms relating to self-esteem, ADHD and adulthood. The resulting 13 articles comprised both cross-sectional and intervention studies. Despite a limited number of studies and methodological concerns, there is evidence to suggest that ADHD is associated with lower self-esteem in adulthood and that self-esteem difficulties can be remedied, to at least some extent, by psychotherapeutic work. It is recommended that future research focuses on the evaluation of therapy that specifically targets difficulties in self-esteem in this population.

The term “off-label drug use” refers to drugs that have not yet acquired “approved” status or drugs that have acquired “approved” status but are used with a different dosage, route, or administration method other than that for which the drug has been approved. In New Zealand, the Medicines Act 1981 specifically allows for off-label drug use. However, this authority is limited by the Health and Disability Commissioner (Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights) Regulations 1996 and the common law, which require that off-label drug use is of an acceptable standard, that the patient should be fully informed, and that the patient should give informed consent. Off-label drug use is an important issue because the current law provides medical practitioners very wide discretionary power, without providing clarification for what is required of the practitioner in exercising his or her discretion in prescribing off-label. This paper discusses possible solutions to this issue, for example, establishing protocol for off-label use, an electronic database of off-label use, and the amendment of legal provisions.