ABSTRACT
Young people’s value as consumers increased rapidly in all Western consumer societies during the period after World War II. In post-socialist countries and emerging economies, young people’s importance as consumers has grown particularly in the 1990s and 2000s, mainly due to the increase in middle-class standards of living, rising levels of education, increasing leisure time, and expanding markets of new technology (see chapters 12, 13, 14; Gbadamosi [ed.], 2016; Goodman [ed.] 2008; Li & Rainieri, 2010; Yin, 2005). Regardless of young people’s usually limited economic resources and currently disadvantageous position in the labor market in many Western countries, especially in Europe, (e.g. Côté, 2014; de Lange, Gesthuizen &Wolbers, 2014), young people are still undoubtedly an important consumer group.
