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Today younger generations are entering adult life with no expectation of guaranteed employment or secure working conditions. In this article the author explores how employment precariousness in subjects with young children shapes the future projections they envisage for themselves, relating to both professional and family life, and considers the politics of gender diversity in this process of ‘projecting’. By drawing on a detailed narrative analysis of the life stories of 40 Italian parents facing job insecurity, three ideal typical future projections are identified that disclose diverse ways of ‘reacting’ to insecure employment and to their futures. They are described as: hopeful open end; discouraged open end; and confident open end. The analysis shows how these imagined futures depend on – and contribute to produce in terms of processes – forms of precarity and of social reproduction of labour which are different between men and women.

This article develops a critical inquiry into women’s processes of renouncement in their pursuit of work- and family-oriented goals. It brings together insights from two different schools of though...