In Europe, Job Protections for Older Generation Are Barriers for Younger Workers; Earnings Gap Looms for Younger Generation Dependent on Short-Term Contracts
By the time the parents of Serena Violano were in their early 30s, they had solid jobs, their own home and two small daughters.</br></br>Today, Serena, a 31-year-old law graduate, is still sharing her teenage bedroom with her older sister in their family home in the small town of Mercogliano, near Naples.</br></br>Ms. Violano spends her days studying for the exam to qualify as a notary in the hopes of scoring a stable job. The tension over her situation sometimes spills over in arguments with her sister over housework or their shared space. And with her 34-year-old boyfriend subsisting on short-term contracts, Ms. Violano doesn't even dare dream of building the sort of life her parents took for granted.</br></br>"For our parents, everything was much easier," she says. "They had the opportunity to start their own life. Instead, we don't have any guarantees for our own future."</br></br>Ms. Violano's stunted adulthood and dashed expectations mark a generational divide between younger and older Europeans that is challenging the Continent's dream of broad-based prosperity.