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The paper looks at inequalities emerging between different generations in the context of political-economic reforms in Bulgaria. Its central concern is with the senior generation (those between 50 years and retirement) which after 1989 has faced exclusion from the new formal labour market. Particularly affected are factory workers as the closure and scaling down of once state-owned enterprises has left a large number redundant and with little hope of future employment. In the paper I explore these issues by focussing on two case studies involving female ex-factory workers from the city of Plovdiv, and on the strategies they adopted in their attempts to reenter the labour market. While reentry is possible, the costs are high and the future insecure and uncertain. Devaluation of the older generation and their marginalisation in terms of the labour market has occurred in parallel to the increased privileging and prominence of the younger generation in the formal market economy. Such generational inequalities are seen as one consequence of postsocialist neoliberal reforms.

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