1. Introduction: choices, opportunities and coping in the face of unemployment -- 2. The northern Scandinavian regions - similarities and differences -- 3. The northern Scandinavian pattern of migration among the young adult population 2000-2005 -- 4. Job is where the heart is? An analysis of geographical labour mobility among young adults -- 5. A waste and a burden? Young and unemployed in the Swedish Barents region -- 6. Job training as an activation strategy: young people's views on work, unemployment and job training in northern Finland -- 7. Coping with unemployment in rural and urban Karelia -- 8. Unemployment, self-esteem and the interplay between latent functions of unemployment -- 9. Geographies of opportunity. Approaching adulthood at the margins of the northern Europe periphery