Chapter 5 investigates the consequences of the Great Recession on indicators of macroeconomic and microeconomic efficiency and equity. In Europe the financial crisis appeared initially under forms similar to those characterizing the United States, but soon assumed a very different form, due to the state intervention to save ailing banks, and the EMU peculiar institutions. More recently, the crisis has again changed its nature, as sovereign debt has been absorbed by banks, thus causing a problem for them and, in turn, again for the public finances that had to face bank failures. An important role was played by the specific financial imbalances that appeared in the EMU as a consequence of the formation of a currency area. Pre-existing imbalances became more intense when Germany decided to cope with the difficulties of a mature economy and unification with its Eastern Lander by adopting an export-led growth model supported by real devaluation. Then, European financial integration allowed for persistent net lending from core countries to peripheral countries, which compensated for the current account of the latter towards not only the former but also countries external to the EA.

The rise of the sharing economy and destabilization of property are embedded in social, economic and technological developments. This chapter describes the decline of stability in the new millennium. It reviews the processes that inspire or trigger the move to flexibility and mobility in property use. Four developments are analyzed: The Great Recession, technological advances (including online work, intellectual property, and online relationships), generational attitudes, and consumers' distrust of big corporations.

In this chapter we review the evidence from a three-country study assessing the impact of the 2008 Great Recession on young people making the step into independent adulthood, comparing experiences in the UK, in Germany, and the USA. Drawing on evidence from large scale, longitudinal studies the experiences of young people coming of age in different cultural contexts are described. The findings suggest that the Great Recession was a significant, but not principal influence on young people’s changing life course post-2008. Better to characterize it as a major economic shock that intensified the impact of pre-existing economic and social processes on young people’s lives.

Nonetheless, the recession effects presented new obstacles to entering and sustaining employment within the adult labor market. In particular the increasing precaritization of employment and marginalization of growing sections of the youth population, including graduates, is a major concern.

In this chapter, we argue that the timing of societal events in an individual’s life plays a major role in shaping that life through interacting developmental processes at multiple levels. We focus on classic research by Elder showing how two such events in historical proximity dramatically altered the lives of California children who were born at opposite ends of the 1920s, 1920–21 and 1928–29, the Great Depression of the 1930s followed by World War II (1941–45) and the Korean War (1950–53). We employ insights from both Elder’s cohort historical life course approach and developmental science including recent work on developmental neuroscience to understand the life-long impact of exposure to events that occur at different times in life, and the mechanisms through which these exposures may influence development, as well as experiences that may provide turning points in development.