Students Working in the Melbourne Sex Industry: Education, Human Capital and the Changing Patterns of the Youth Labour Market

Abstract

Students in Australia are entering the sex industry as a pragmatic response to increasing education costs and a reduction in government income support. This paper examines the lived experiences of a group of 40 young women, all post-secondary education students, working in the Melbourne sex industry. Their experiences suggest that while the Australian Government continues to implement ‘user pays’ reforms to the education sector, sex work will feature more dominantly as a ‘normal’ form of employment for students seeking to obtain a higher education. This does not suggest, however, that student poverty leads to criminality, but rather that there is a growing rift between what is considered legal ‘mainstream’ employment and what is considered acceptable ‘legitimate’ employment by young people themselves. This ‘tension’ emerges in the choices and decisions of the young people in this research: the fragmented, multiple identities they assume as they take on many different roles and responsibilities, exercise selective and strategic disclosure practices, are negatively positioned by others, and are active in making choices and decisions to reach their goals and imagined futures.