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Happiness and Young People

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The Happiness Riddle and the Quest for a Good Life

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Abstract

This chapter draws on interviews with five young people and explores their different experiences of happiness charting the impact of class and gender on their wellbeing. Many discuss the challenges of making transitions to adult independence and how poor quality jobs and expensive education and housing have been a source of uncertainty. Yet despite these threats to their wellbeing, good friendship networks, leisure activities and supportive family meant they were still positive about their lives and optimistic about their futures. Adolescence for them, growing up in a time of austerity had been ‘the best of times and the worst of times’.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

    Mark Cieslik

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  1. Mark Cieslik
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Cieslik, M. (2017). Happiness and Young People. In: The Happiness Riddle and the Quest for a Good Life. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-31882-4_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-31882-4_7

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-230-28303-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-31882-4

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