The [im]possibility of planning a future: how prolonged precarious employment during transitions affects the lives of young Australians

ABSTRACT

Debates around new patterns of youth transitions to adulthood have been well documented in academic research. In a similar vein, there is an important array of research on the rise of precarious work in labour markets. What has been less well understood is what does precarious employment do to young people in their transitions to adulthood. In this paper, we examine the effects of precarious employment on the present and future lives of young people. We draw on two waves of surveys, in 2012 and 2017, from longitudinal research project tracking a cohort of young Australians over the last decade. We track their employment experiences as they transition into adulthood, paying particular attention to the effects that engagement in precarious employment has on their relationships, wellbeing and their ability to plan for the future. Ultimately, our aim is to contribute to the current debates on this central contemporary concept of social life, precarious work, by interrogating what precarious employment does to young people’s lives.

KEYWORDS:

• Precarious employment
• wellbeing
• relationships
• youth transitions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [Grant No. DP160101611]

Notes on contributors

Hernan Cuervo

Hernan Cuervo is an Associate Professor in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education and Deputy Director of the Youth Research Centre, at the University of Melbourne. His research interests are youth studies, the nexus between education and work, rural studies and theory of justice. His latest book is Youth, Inequality and Social Change in the Global South.

Jenny Chesters

Jenny Chesters is a Lecturer and Research Fellow in the Youth Research Centre, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne. Her research interests include inequality in educational attainment and transitions between education and employment throughout the life course. Her publications include peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters reporting the results of quantitative data analysis.