The research on young people in Brazil: setting new challenges from quantitative data

Abstract

Based on an analysis of data from the National Survey of Household Sampling (PNDA) covering two periods (2004 and 2014), this article explores changes and continuities in the situation of youths in the fields of education, labor and family life. At the same time, it attempts to clarify how these dimensions of life are experienced in different manners by young males and females, and according to criteria such as age, race/color and family income. This exercise is taken into consideration so that this study may outline, even if preliminarily and exploratorily, new challenges for the research on what it is like to be a young person in Brazil today. This agenda includes an effort to understand how socio-economic changes brought about during the last decade, as well as their more recent reversal, unfold into the experiences of the current young generation, both in terms of a whole set of new expectations and in challenges to fulfill such aspirations. Another highlight is the need for a wary way of understanding these individuals in their life paths, their lifestyles, the challenges they share and how they react to them at this specific moment of their lives.