Youth Side-Hustles

Youth Side-Hustles: Entrepreneurship and Employment in Enterprise Culture

Panel presentations by

David Farrugia (Deakin University)

Brendah Churchill (University of Melbourne)

Stephanie Patouras (Deakin University)

Kim Allen (University of Leeds)

This panel discussion explores new intersections of entrepreneurship and employment through a focus on young people with ‘side-hustles’, or small-scale entrepreneurial business activities pursued alongside formal employment. Side-hustles are promoted in popular culture as a pathway to passionate self-actualisation and financial freedom, but are also part of public anxieties about the toxic effects of a ‘hustle culture’ that exacerbates inequalities and leads to burnout. There is also tremendous policy enthusiasm internationally for youth entrepreneurship as a solution to unemployment and underemployment amongst young people, and entrepreneurialism is increasingly regarded as a facet of contemporary employability in a ‘knowledge economy’ that valorises flexibility and an appetite for risk. In this panel we take up these concerns, informed by sociological discussions of enterprise culture, precarity, gendered labour and transformations in the nature of labour. We draw on a longitudinal mixed-methods research project funded by the Australian Research Council exploring the experiences, pathways and subjectivities of young people who combine employment with entrepreneurship. In this panel discussion we draw on surveys and interviews to explore the relationship between subjectivity, labour, value and time enacted in side-hustle labours, gendered intersections of entrepreneurship and employment, and the implications of side-hustles for theorising precarity, gendered employment patterns, and the relationship between entrepreneurship and employment in enterprise culture.

David Farrugia is ARC Future Fellow at Deakin University’s Centre for Research for Educational Impact. His work explores the relationship between youth identities and value relations. He has led current and recent projects in the area of youth and affective labour, youth side-hustles and young people and the everyday politics of precarious labour.

Brendan Churchill is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Melbourne researching in the areas of work and employment, family, youth and gender. His current research program focuses on the changing nature of work and employment for young people, women and families with a particular interest in how the future of work will unfold and impact these groups. He is also researching the gendered dimensions of the gig economy in Australia.

Stephanie Patouras is a PhD Candidate and Research Assistant in the School of Education at Deakin University. Her work examines issues of gender, femininity, productivity and digital platforms, and is recently published in Feminist Media Studies.

Kim Allen is Professor in Sociology of Youth and Culture at the University of Leeds. She is a feminist interdisciplinary scholar whose work sits at the intersections of youth, culture, gender and work. She has published widely on issues including: youth and graduate transitions and ‘employability’; educational inequalities; gender, youth and working lives; and representations of class and gender in popular culture