Subjective effects of entrepreneurship policies among Spanish young people

Abstract

In the last decade the European Union has implemented a wide range of policies aimed to foster entrepreneurship and self-employment among its young people in order to counteract the disturbing effects of the Global Financial Crisis on youth employment. Departing from the research question of what kind of individual are young people being urged to become through those policies , this article analyses the subjective effects of the entrepreneurship policies among Spanish young people. This analysis is grounded on a qualitative study composed of document review of European and Spanish policies about entrepreneurship and an exploratory fieldwork. It is composed of participant observations in institutional events, discussion groups and in-depth interviews to young people involved in entrepreneurial projects. Thus, the article identifies a core tension between the governmental discourse around entrepreneurship and the interviewees’ experiences as well as gives evidences of the articulation between entrepreneurship and precarity. Aligned with critical research undertaken in this field, it concludes establishing that those policies entail a conception of work on oneself that leads the social actor to normalize and collaborate in his own precarisation.