Youth and the Social Economy in Greece: Policy Learning for Enhancing Employment Opportunities

In Greece youth unemployment has dramatically exacerbated during the prolonged economic crisis that the country has experienced since the aftermath of the global financial crisis. The de-stabilization of Greece’s sovereign debt brought the country under strict economic surveillance through the three successive rescue deals signed with the international lenders and triggered a drawn-out recession. The paper focuses on the importance of the social economy for youth employment during the crisis, and on whether and how policy learning and transfer can contribute to increasing work opportunities for the young unemployed in this sector. 

We develop a three-pronged approach that embraces the following issues:  (a) the increasing employment demand in the social economy sector due to the drastically shrinking public provision in social welfare vis-à-vis people’s heightened welfare needs; (b) any mismatches between the expanding scope of professional skills and capacities required to work in this specific sector, and the competences of young people, particularly of the low skilled/unskilled young unemployed; and (c) the potential for policy learning, in order to expand the pool of “good practices” for enhancing employment opportunities in the social economy.

The first part of the paper scrutinizes the available literature on youth and the social economy in South Europe and sets Greece in a comparative context. The second part examines the policies (implemented/planned) for promoting employment in this sector in Greece, while the third part reflects upon the prospects for policy-learning by the relevant actors, with regard to effective youth employment pathways in the social economy.