Young women, routes through education and employment and discursive constructions of love and intimacy

The current diversity within the sphere of intimacy has been explained in terms of 'individualization', whereby individuals exercise choice in this area of their lives. This is argued to have resulted from changes affecting young women's lives-specifically, increased educational and occupational opportunities and subsequent reduced domestication. This article thus explores the interplay between young women's educational and subsequent occupational experiences and their intimate relationships with men, drawing on 30 in-depth interviews with young women. It argues that their different routes through education and employment position them in different settings, which facilitate or encourage opposing discourses of love and intimacy-romance and contingency-and subsequent intimate practices. This dynamic is shown to have some flexibility.