Varieties of employment: a comparison of skill-based activities at work among youth and young adults in Canada

ABSTRACT

According to practice engagement theory within the field of adult education, everyday workplace activities offer an opportunity for skill development among youth and young adults; yet, prior research highlights the prevalence of routine and low-skill work within entry-level jobs. Utilising data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), the objective of the following study is to demonstrate how workplace literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving activities differ among people aged 16 to 34 in Canada. Latent class analysis provides a typology of literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving activities at work and generates insight into how socio-demographic and employment factors are associated with each group. The findings highlight that employment cannot be uniformly characterised as low-skill. Rather, there are unique employment groups with differing literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving activity characteristics. Nevertheless, socio-demographic factors do matter for gaining access to employment that involves daily skill-based activities. While age, parental education, immigration background, and education level are significantly associated with the latent classes, economic and employment characteristics reduce the magnitude of these associations. Together, the results suggest that access to skill-based activities at work are more or less accessible for certain groups and connect to other aspects of early-career job quality and occupational segregation.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth and youth adults
• workplace activities
• employment
• PIAAC
• Canada

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest is reported by the authors.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available at https://www.oecd.org/skills/piaac/data/

Notes

1. A definition of skill often remains taken for granted and is considered an elusive concept in the fields of labour studies (Esposto, 2008), sociology (Attewell, 1990), and education (Fenwick, 2006). We use an interdisciplinary conception of skill and, following Green (2013), define skill in terms of three key features: ‘1) productive: using skills at work is productive of value; 2) expandable: skills are enhanced by training and development; 3) social: skills are socially determined’ (p. 10).

2. Although workplace ‘activity’ and workplace ‘task’ are often used interchangeably in academic literature, they are distinct constructs. In simple terms, a task is a ‘goal to be attained within set conditions,’ while an ‘activity is the response that the individual gives to the task’ (Leplat, 1990, p. 1390). The indicators in the analysis largely measure workplace activities; for example, reading directions is an activity necessary to complete a certain task (e.g., learn how to use a specific machine).

3. In Canada, the sampling frame excluded individuals living on First Nations reserves, in remote locations, on military bases, in collective dwellings, or in institutions (e.g., jails). These excluded groups are under the OECD’s maximum noncoverage rate for the target population, which was set at a maximum level of 5%.

Additional information

Funding

This study is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Notes on contributors

Ashley Pullman

Dr. Ashley Pullman is a postdoctoral fellow at The Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. As a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholar, she completed her PhD in Educational Studies with a sub-specialization in measurement, evaluation, and research methodology from the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on education, skill, and work, and uses a sociodemographic lens to understand how and why outcomes vary among individuals.

Michelle Y. Chen

Dr. Michelle Y. Chen is a graduate from the Measurement, Evaluation, and Research Methodology (MERM) program at the University of British Columbia. She is a research psychometrician at Paragon Testing Enterprises. Her research focuses on applied psychometrics, validation studies and language testing.