Labour market experience, educational attainment and self-reported happiness: crowding-out amongst young people in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

Recent literature on education and work well recognises the ‘crowding-out perspective’ of how higher education expansion impacts the labour market experience of young people with different educational levels. However, the relationship between the labour market experience and young people’s self-reported happiness remains less well understood. This paper examines whether a ‘crowding out’ effect occurs amongst post-secondary degree-holders on the self-reported happiness of young people (aged 16-34) amidst increasing difficulties during their school-to-work transition. Drawing on a city-wide online survey in a leading global city, Hong Kong, statistical analysis shows that contrary to the mainstream ‘crowding out perspective’, self-reported happiness is lower amongst young people with high rather than low educational attainment. However, in the absence of a ‘happiness premium’ of educational attainment, young people in Hong Kong with secondary degrees or below are much more sensitive to adverse labour market experiences, such as unemployment, high job pressure and long working hours. No similar moderating effect of educational attainment is found on the relationship between the self-reported happiness of young people and regular work shifts. The implications of these findings on the ‘crowding out perspective’ for youth development policy within East Asia and Hong Kong productivist welfare paradigm are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Happiness
• labour market experience
• crowding-out perspective
• higher education
• young people

Acknowledgments

This article is part of the research project titled The Well-being of Young People during Their Transition into Work and Adulthood, funded by the Lingnan University, Hong Kong Seed Fund. The authors thank Professor Lok Sang Ho for access to the online LIFE Happiness Survey data. The authors are indebted to Sing Yi Luk for her research support. We also thank the attendants of the 14th East Asian Social Policy Research Network Annual Conference (Nagoya University, Japan, 2–3 August 2017) and the Conference on Youth Opportunity in Asia (National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan, 18–19 December 2017) for their valuable comments and suggestions. All remaining errors remain the authors’ own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stefan Kühner

Stefan Kühner works as an Associate Professor at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. His research interest centres on the policies and politics of social investment in Eastern and Western societies. He also specializes in research on multidimensional well-being across the life course, particularly of children and young people.

Jin Jiang

Dr Jin Jiang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research interests include sociology of education, social stratification and mobility, labour markets, and youth development.

Zhuoyi Wen

Dr Zhuoyi Wen works as a Research Assistant Professor at the Asia Pacific Institute of Ageing Studies, Lingnan University. His research interest focuses on social policy and social citizenship, with particular emphasis on the politics of policy process and the role of societal forces.

Maggie Lau

Maggie Lau is a Research Associate Professor in the School of Graduate Studies and Institute of Policy Studies at Lingnan University. Her research interests focus on poverty and social exclusion, child poverty and children well-being, as well as adolescent health.