Household capitals and life-strategies of youth in Croatia: the results of a 2015 survey

This paper presents the preliminary results of a nationally representative survey exploring the connections of household capitals, educational capitals and career life-paths of youth in Croatia. The data have been obtained as part of a wider questionnaire designed to survey life-strategies and survival strategies of individuals and households in South East European countries. Taking into account the ‘prolonged adulthood’ framework, in data analysis we have focused on the young people between 15 and 35 years of age. In our interpretation, the results of the quantitative survey have been complemented by various qualitative insights on the life-strategies of youth in Croatia. The analysis of the obtained data reveals that, as could be expected in a country with the third highest unemployment rate in the EU, many among the youth in the (post) transitional Croatia experience hindered individualisation due to prolonged dependence on the accumulated capitals of the parental generation. It is in this context that we analyze how household economic, cultural and social capitals act as distinctive factors in struggling with existential insecurities. It is concluded that high levels of insecurity and precarisation can both hinder rational anticipation and capacity to plan the future, steering not only youth but also household strategies to predominant presentism and the lack of strategic reasoning, and on the other hand stimulate the usage and conversion of the household and individual capitals in new and creative ways.