‘I need to switch the job’. Young rural-urban migrants’ perceptions about their job during their education to work transition

ABSTRACT

Young people’s choices and decisions during their education to work transition reflect their perceptions about work. Empirical studies of these perceptions of young rural-urban migrants are limited. This article explores the perceptions of young rural-urban migrants working at call centres in Kathmandu and the way these perceptions are associated with socio-cultural values and beliefs. The dominant perceptions found among young rural-urban migrants were that their job in a call centre served for skills development, financial needs, and as a temporary solution. Even though the centre was a fun place to work, there was little indication that young people saw this job as a ‘career’ The perceptions reveal a strong relation with socio-cultural values and beliefs influencing young people’s choices and decision making in their education to work transition in this context.

KEYWORDS:

• Rural-urban migration
• youth
• call centres
• education to work transition
• Nepal

Introduction

Literature on youth perceptions about work usually focuses on careers young people expect to achieve i.e. white collar-jobs. In this literature, youth perceptions about work are largely framed around the sense and meaning of work for the youth (Ribeiro, Silva, and Figueiredo 2016) and around the work values transmitted from parents to their children (Johnson, Mortimer, and Heckhausen 2020). Most studies on youth education to work transition are based on quantitative studies, due to which underlying socio-cultural factors and their role in influencing the decisions, choices and opinions of young people get less attention. Rural-urban young migrants’ perceptions about work based on their experiences during their education to work transition have rarely been explored. An example of research into young people’s perceptions of jobs in the informal labour sector is Yeboah’s study on young rural-urban migrants (Yeboah 2021). In her study, she demonstrates how young rural-urban migrants in the capital in Accra, Ghana, took up jobs in the urban informal economy regarding them as a means to transit to the future. Yeboah’s research encompasses the idea that young people’s ‘future’ always lies somewhere ‘else’. There is little indication that the participants desire to stay in informal jobs.

Several studies show how perceptions about work are embedded in the socio-cultural values and beliefs influencing young people’s choices and decisions. The literature on youth work at call centres has shown linkages between young people’s perceptions about their job and cultural beliefs and values in the narratives of young people (Patel 2010; Gorde 2018; Parikh 2018). For example, in India, Parikh (2018) explored the respectability in call centre jobs for young women in Mumbai, India. Her findings show that young women staying late at night were considered to be ‘bad women’ (Parikh 2018). She concludes that such cultural beliefs and notions attached to jobs influence the pathway navigation of young women. This is because cultural values and beliefs frame the perceptions of what an individual should do (Forsberg 2017) and aspire in terms of ‘socially acceptable’ or ‘socially unacceptable’ jobs (Kölbel 2013), and of jobs that boost one’s prestige (Bista 1991).

Similarly, Rumsby’s (2021) study on Cambodia’s stateless children reveals that in the context of migration and religion, specifically, Christian conversion becomes the centrality of how young people perceive their future career. The study demonstrates that young people aspire to become Christian missionaries themselves, offering valuable services and using prayers to achieve harmony and change in the community. The perceived ability to reconfigure their future through adopting a new religion, Rumsby argues, influenced the motivation of young people to become a teacher. Taking a different perspective, Forsberg (2017), using spatial capital theory, drawing on Bourdieu’s habitus (Bourdieu 1990), examines transitions among students in secondary education in the northern part of Sweden. She mentions that young people’s ‘choices need to be understood in relation to “what counts” in society […]’, where education and certain professions are associated with prestige and social mobility (Forsberg 2017, 325). Studies have shown that parents, families, and friends are integral to social-cultural values and beliefs. Parental expectations for their children both in education and work influence the choices and decision-making in education to work transition (Patel 2017; Kölbel 2013). These studies highlight perceptions about work among young people as a socialisation process and intergenerational transmission (Kittel, Kalleitner, and Tsakloglou 2019). From this perspective, it appears that perceptions are rooted in everyday practices and acquired through socio-cultural norms, values, and belief systems.

Studying perceptions provides insights in the meanings and values individuals and social groups hold and how they influence their decision making process. Drawing on qualitative longitudinal data obtained from twenty-four rural-urban migrants working at call centres, in two phases, this study addresses the following questions: Firstly, what are the perceptions of rural-urban migrants about the call centre job during their education to work transition in Nepal? Secondly, how does the socio-cultural context of rural-urban migrants in Nepal influence their perceptions of call centre jobs?

The socio-cultural context framing perceptions about work in Nepal

Labelling people by the work they do has been the elementary way of class stratification in Nepal. Many ethnicities/castes in Nepal were defined by the work they were doing. People’s ethnicity/caste determined their occupation: castes like Brahmin as priests, Chhetri/Kshetri as warriors, and Vaishyas as traders, respectively. Professions were treated like traditional customs. These occupations also act as an identity of an individual or a group. The kind of work and the term used to denominate this work became charged with cultural meaning and identity (Bista 1991).

The distinction between socially ‘appropriate’ and ‘inappropriate’ jobs gained weight post-1950s when Nepal opened its doors to foreign investments and became part of the globalised world. Educational and economic upliftment programmes were implemented (Bista 1991). Research has pointed out that, in the light of globalisation, education has been developed as the only way to accelerate people’s social and economic mobility (Bista 1991; Valentin 2011; Yabiku and Schlabach 2009). Significant shifts from farm-based work to non-farm work also suggest trends in the Nepalese labour opportunities and job choices (Yabiku and Schlabach 2009). For instance, more and more people opt for education to get a clerical job (Rosenbloom and Bijay 2014) or a job that fosters both prestige and socio-economic mobility such as doctor or engineer (Bista 1991; Witenstein and Palmer 2013). Whereas low skilled jobs or jobs with social stigma attached to them are considered socially ‘inappropriate’, for example, working at nights (Bista 1991) or as labour migrants (Valentin 2011), or as a scavenger.

Similarly, images of successful people with jobs such as doctors, engineers, or bankers, fluent in English, and/or with higher academic credentials represent typical figures in the context of Nepal (Lotter 2017). Such images and their success stories are frequently portrayed in daily newspapers, through media channels and magazines, promoting a ‘desirable identity’ (Liechty 2013; Witenstein and Palmer 2013). These images of success leverage young people to navigate socially acceptable pathways and attributes, which many young people and parents aspire through education.

Author (2020) show that young graduate employees with no employment experiences have been able to earn an income in call centres which they could use for both personal expenses and to support their families. They confirmed to develop communication skills and new strategies, leadership skills and social capital in an environment of political instability. But in contrast to the above, call centre jobs are hardly aspired by young people or parents. Although these centres provide job opportunities for young people, the jobs are considered precarious (Patel 2010).

Call centres in Nepal

The implementation of neoliberal policies in the 1990s fostered technological advancements among developing countries. Technological advancements propelled service economies and service Business Process Outsourcing (BPO’s) appeared (Parikh 2018). In Nepal, these outsourcing services were transferred from India, where BPO services started to show a significant contribution to the Indian economy (Pradhan 2016). According to a report published by Sawtee (2013), a think tank in Nepal, there are about 6000 call centres registered in Nepal and about 200 that are not registered with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The registered companies run on a small to medium scale but have not been integrated into the workforce evaluation. They are almost non-existent in the Nepalese statistical figures and there are no data on the number of employees working in these call centres (Pradhan 2017). However, the call centre vacancy announcements on Nepalese job placement sites and the comments for further information on the position do indicate the interest and existence of young people in this sector.

Call centres in Nepal involve employees providing voice-to-voice to clients dialling toll-free numbers from American states to Australia. Call centre employees are not required to display their body or face but are required to have a certain level of educational qualifications and fluency in English (Pradhan 2016; Sawtee 2013). The selected candidates have to learn accents depending on the countries they will dial for, work night or day shifts depending on the time zones of the service country. Call centre employees who provide voice-to-voice services are also referred to as telemarketers. The primary task of the call centre workers is to communicate with customers from different countries about various products and their services through internet-based calls. The different services in the call centre work range from making sales calls to taking orders and addressing customers’ queries and complaints. There are also different types of call centre services inbound and outbound. In inbound calls, the call centre agents receive calls from the customers whereas the outbound services are sales calls (Parikh 2018). Call centre employees cater to customers through phone calls on website registration to its maintenance, insurance claims, online education registration, credit cards services, and applying for home loans. These services can differ from one call centre to the other. A person working at a call centre earns from Nepalese rupees 10,000 to 15,000 per month (approximately €100–150) at entry-level (Sawtee 2013).

In the socio-cultural context of Nepal, call centre jobs have not been perceived as future careers that would support social mobility. Since BPO´s, more specifically call centre services, are a relatively new job sector (Pradhan 2017), not much research has been done on how young people perceive their work in call centres. This article explores perceptions of young people working about their call centre job and the influence of socio-cultural factors on their perceptions.

Methods

This article is based on life (hi)stories interviews and in-depth interviews, carried out between 2018–2019, with 24 young rural-urban migrants living in Kathmandu, Nepal. Interviews were conducted in Kathmandu, in different locations such as cafes, co-working spaces and around the participant’s community areas. Twelve interviews with males and 12 interviews with females were carried out either in English or Nepali or a combination of both. The participants were given the liberty to choose the language they were comfortable in. Due to the absence of official data on the number of call centres functioning in Kathmandu and people employed at the call centres, snowball sampling was used to identify the participants.

Qualitative longitudinal data were collected in two phases; the first phase was conducted with life (hi)story interviews and the second phase was in-depth interviews. Life (hi)story interviews were accompanied by a life-course timeline mapping exercise (Kolar et al. 2015). The timeline mapping exercise was used together with the life (hi)story interviews to understand the change in individual lives and allow the participants to tell their stories in a more concrete and reflexive way with the hope that it would add rigour to the analysis as suggested by Bagnoli (2009) and Worth (2011). The life (hi)story interviews covered the lives of the participants from birth until the time of their employment at a call centre in Kathmandu.

In the second phase, data were gathered after a six-month interval, with the same research participants. The second phase was conducted with a reduced batch of twenty-one young people, 11 males and 10 females. In the second phase, the participant’s employment status was documented to note any changes since the previous interview. The second phase of interviews also uncovered essential issues that could have been missed during the first round of interviews. The interviews in the first phase lasted for approximately two hours whereas in the second phase it varied from 45 minutes to one and a half hours. This provided insight in the rich life experiences of young rural-urban migrants aged between 16–25 years.

Most of the participants finished Higher Secondary Education and all had a background of migrating to Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal, for work and study from different regions of Nepal. Half of the research participants were young women (12 females), reflecting that many young women now undertake higher education. Although the criteria for the selection of the participants were only related to being a rural-urban migrant and working at a call centre, the selected participants represented the diverse ethnic groups found in Nepal.

This paper is part of a youth transition from education to work study conducted in Nepal. Detailed consent forms were sent to all the potential interviewees after they were informed of the content of the study and the aim of the research. The data were collected from a few identified call centres because getting access to young people working at call centres proved to be a difficult task.

Data analysis

The interviews were recorded with a digital voice recorder, transcribed verbatim and analysed. To protect the research participants’ identities pseudonyms (chosen by themselves) were given to participants. For this study, the data were coded manually due to the small number of interviews conducted (Basit 2003). The analysis of the narratives/stories is based on the thematic analysis guidelines outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006). This was followed by Boeije’s (2002) constant comparative analysis. The codes were analysed inductively, and a set of sub-themes and themes were developed aiming to explore the perceptions about their job among the participants. Then the codes were read again, and duplicate codes were removed. Then, the codes denoting similarities were put together to form sub-themes and themes. After grouping these codes into sub-themes or concepts, nineteen code families were identified that addressed the research participants’ perceptions about their job or the cultural phenomenon in which these perceptions were embedded for example, ‘I was just waiting for my results … just for timepass’ such codes were put under the theme of perception about the call centre job. There were few codes such as ‘I used to admire the people on the television commercial ads who dressed up for the office’ that were put together providing an understanding of how the media context contributed to forming ideas about desirable jobs among young people.

The following results section presents research participants’ perceptions of a job explained in two ways: first, research participants perceptions explicitly about their job at the call centre; second, we look at the interaction of perceptions within the socio-cultural settings in the context of Nepal. In this way, we try to identify how perceptions of young people are at the intersection of their individual views and the broader dynamics of socio-cultural settings.

Results

Young people’s perceptions of call centre work

What do young people think about their call centre job? Statements such as being a fun place to work, providing good income and skills development while requiring no experience put a positive light on the nature of the call centre job. Whereas statements such as monotonous and with a lack of career development provided a negative picture of the job. These negative statements fit the widespread notion that call centre jobs are socio-culturally inappropriate. These statements describe call centre job as something that young people would not aspire to. The positive and negative perceptions were taken from twenty-four participants in the following ways:

To develop skills and fill the gaps

Research participants often expressed their lack of knowledge of English which made them feel insecure about being able to achieve their work aspirations. Many participants with a rural background without access to private English boarding schools, experienced the importance of speaking English to perform any kind of work in Nepal or to study abroad. Their background increased their vulnerability as they observed that their peers and fellow applicants had a better grasp of English-speaking skills than they had. Some of them joined a call centre in order to be able to perform well in the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) which is crucial for the application to study abroad. As a result, most of the participants mentioned that taking up call centre work would develop their skills in English and could help them land in the job that they aspire to have in future. For instance, 22-year-old John shared:

I wanted to join Lok Sewa [Government service job] […] I got selected. […] But they rejected me in the interview round … I was so disappointed […] I decided to work on the skills that I was lacking […] Someone informed me that if you want to improve your English then you can join a call centre […] I had to join the call centre and hone the skills that I lacked […]

Stories like these shed light on the strategies that young people use to enhance the skills that they identify as their weak points. John suggested that anyone who wants to improve his/her English or public speaking skills needs to join the call centre work. Here John indicates that a call centre job is not a regular job but rather a skills enhancement institution that could be taken specially to enhance the language skills and public speaking skills.

In addition, 20-year-old Nora described that she was happy to have such a job to enhance her skills:

I was a shy person before I joined the call centre […] Now I am the loudest in my class. I am also planning to apply for study in Australia […] It helped me to score well in IELTS [International English language Testing System] exams […]

Migrating for education and work is becoming a common phenomenon among most young Nepalese young people. Another research participant, 21-year-old Anna, said:

I heard that in call centres your English will improve […] it was like I was planning to try for Australia after my higher education … I wanted to sit for IELTS exams […] I got the call for an interview, and I got the job [the call centre she worked with] … […] I left it in November because I was in the process of application …

Call centre work was a temporary solution or an entry point for some of the research participants. If given the opportunity they would prefer to work in commercial sectors such as a bank or to have a government job that matches their educational background. Most of the research participants shared that they wanted to make use of their time after their study. For instance, 19-year-old Bob said:

I saw the call centre job on Facebook and thought let’s try and the money was good too … I was just waiting for my results so thought of doing it [the job at the call centre] […] this is just for a time pass …

The afore mentioned Anna added:

I wanted to work […] 6 months at home … I was bored. I thought of working until I get through [Anna was applying for study in Australia] … The application was rejected, and I also left the job …

To fulfil financial needs

When asked why they ended up taking a call centre job, about six research participants talked about taking up the work due to financial limitations to cover their expenses for their studies and their commitments towards their families. Four of these research participants also mentioned that they had been working and studying before they completed highschool. They took up any work that they could find which they could combine with their studies. Call centres came across to them as very flexible to work and providing a good income to support their family and cover their study costs. For instance, the 25-year-old Rhythm described:

It became difficult for me to work in the hospital [she worked as an assistant in the department of nursing] … I am too emotional, and I could not handle seeing patients and it was overlapping with my classes […] father was unemployed … I was doing my Bachelors’ and couldn’t afford to become unemployed and stop going to the college […] An uncle of mine who was working with NCELL [Nepal private mobile providers] informed me that they have call centres and are looking for agents […] the salary was better than the previous job at the hospital and I only had to insert information on the computers. There were different shifts, and I could pick any […] I picked the day shift … I wake up around 5:00 am, I take the classes until 9:30 am and then I log in the office around 10 am … sir [her current employer] is quite flexible and helpful to people like us who combine work with studies …

Since most of the participants were in their 20’s, in university, and their parents had limited financial resources, call centre work provided them with the flexibility to combine their studies and work without any difficulties. Take, for example, this interview conducted with Ray, a 25-year-old graduate student:

Ray: I would recommend this job to all young people.

Researcher: Why would you like to recommend this job to all young people?

Ray: It is good in terms of time flexibility; we can combine our studies and work together. I have seen many recruits who could not handle the late-night jobs and do not prefer to give up their sleep. But once they get used to the schedule then it is ok […] and it’s good money you know … if you perform well then you can earn more than 50,000 Nepalese rupees.

Researcher: That is more than any other part-time work you can have in Nepal.

Ray: Yes, as a young person with no work experience and no higher educational degrees you can earn a lot. For me, I have been able to cover all my expenses and I even send some back home to my family.

Monotonous work and lack of career prospect

Despite the helpfulness of the job, many research participants mentioned the lack of career prospects. They said they did not want to make a career out of it and was just a temporary solution. For instance, 22-year-old Mark said:

Mark: It was like I was not getting any project [assignments for engineers] … I did not have any other job and I saw this [the call centre job] in the newspaper and applied for it … this was just temporary […]

Researcher: So, are you still working at the call centre?

Mark: No… like I said I took this for some time, and this is not my field … I am now just waiting for a new project [engineering assignments] … I left it …

Researcher: Could people make a career in this field [in the call centre jobs]?

Mark: […] No creativity … there is nothing in this job […] just make a call and sell the products … I used to think I have an engineering degree and what I am doing is the work of a salesman … I mean it is okay for some time for the experience but there is no future in this field […]

Very few research participants had prior knowledge about call centre jobs. Some participants acknowledged that young people with no experience will develop skills but suggested that the work is monotonous and lacks any growth. Few had the perception that a job at a call centre would do any good to them in future. For example, 21-year-old Joye said:

I reached a moment where I said to myself that ‘I need to switch the job’ […] It’s all because I needed financial backup […] even though it does not have a growth I convinced myself […] first I will complete my Bachelor’s, get the degree … and then I will obviously go for something else … but to get something else one needs good networking […]

In this context, it is important to note that the decision for the participants to continue working at the call centre was rarely perceived as a future career. The narratives of the participants highlight that they were simply working in the call centre before they could find something concrete or become eligible enough for other jobs or to fill the gap before they could go back to their education.

Fun place to work

Call centre jobs were not perceived negatively by everyone. There were few research participants who found call centres a fun place to work. 17-year-old, Nora said that, before undergoing the call centre work training, she had a different opinion about the call centre job. She thought it would be just like a receptionist in a company that would be boring for her:

I had no idea what call centre work meant … I was like it must be some sort of receptionist work where I would have to take up calls and requests and transfer it to the concerned department or personnel […] Ma´am [the training coach at the job placement centres] informed us about working online and selling different types of products … I thought it would be boring […] The first day I joined, I saw people like me … my age … I felt like I was back to college […] we had so much fun during the lunch breaks and after work …

Working at the call centre was all about the ‘vibe’, that is, a feeling of being in an environment where everyone is of the same age, and one could ‘enjoy’ being at work. 20-years old Peter Brown shared this sense of ‘vibe’ when asked about his job:

I have worked at multiple places […] but this job is cool […] After work we go and hang out at places. It’s like working with your college friends, you know […]

These reflections about the work environment at the call centre show the positive side of the work. However, these views were neither the only nor the dominating perception among the young people. While being positive about call centre work for its youthfulness, flexibility to study and work, and good income, these statements are not blinding the participants to the challenges that the job has. In the next section, we highlight these challenges rooted in socio-cultural beliefs about their career and about their job.

Reflections of cultural and social settings

Research participants in this study indicated that the local societal norms and values do not accept the type of work that call centres provide. Especially for females, there is a negative perception of late-night working. Nepalese society at large but also parents condemn working at night. According to the participants, they had to quit the night shift and find another call centre that had a day shift. For instance, 17-year-old Nora said that her parents told her that working late night jobs are not socially acceptable and safe for girls:

When I got the night job, I thought I could go to rest on the weekends, and it would be fine […] when I shared this information with my parents, they said ´no´ … They said we understand your work but when we will talk about this to our relatives and in our community, they will think it differently […] They said “we haven’t reached the situation in life yet that you have to choose a night job… I left the night shift job […] now I am in the process of preparing to study abroad …

In a few cases, participants also shared that their parents suggested not to take call centre jobs as it does not add value to their education and to what they envisioned for them. For instance, Anna said:

I told my parents that I want to work. They were happy […] they said well that [call centre] does not seem right … why not join the bank as a trainee […]

19-year-old Liza added:

My father said ‘I guess at this moment you should focus on continuing your studies well even if you have free time’ …

For Anna, as her father was a banker, her parents wanted her to follow the same pathway. As being in a bank job is more appreciated in the context of Nepal. Typically, the research participants talked about their desire to get jobs such as nurses, teachers, government staff or in banks.

But in some cases, the ideas about ‘suitable’ work among the participants were something that the participants derived from different media sources, including TV commercial advertisements. As shared by 25-year-old Ansu:

I used to watch those TV commercial advertisements where they show air hostesses in beautiful suits and shirts […] I thought that this would be the ideal job for me […]

While many participants had a clear idea of which kinds of job they preferred and why, some participants just aspired a job somewhere in an ‘office’. They emphasised that most of the office jobs are stable, and one can know where to be in five or ten years in terms of position, such as discussed by 20-year-old Alex:

Alex: I always thought of having a desk job […]

Researcher: Why?

Alex: It is easy, and you have to work certain hours, few tasks and go home […] in this job [the salesman’s job he held at an Indian Merchant shop before joining the call centre job] I always felt exhausted […] If I knew earlier, I would have worked harder [at school] and now I might have been in a nice office somewhere.

Young people were asked about where they would envision themselves in 5 years or 10 years during the second round of in-depth interviews. This question was formulated to understand what kind of jobs they aim for in their future. Interestingly many young participants mentioned they would like to travel abroad for studies and work. Their views are informed by the information they received from television, relatives, friends, and family. 25-year-old Keith said:

I saw my friend … his personality changed […] he came back from Malaysia […] he insisted me to apply for work in Malaysia […] Good money and work in a foreign land […] what else you need …

Another participant Jimmy, 24-year-old shared:

I want to learn music in Denmark. I am preparing for that […] I have few friends and they are happy that I am thinking about this […]

Whereas others mentioned applying for a government service job. For instance, 22-year-old John said:

[…] My goal is to work in the government sectors … I will again apply for Lok Sewa [Government service job] … by then I will improve my English speaking […]

A government job does not only bring financial security and stability in an individual’s life but is also attached to prestige and social mobility. These examples show how young people come to perceive a job or a career in a certain way. There are these fine invisible layers of societal expectations and socio-cultural values about work appropriateness and desirability that at many times influence their opinions, choices, and trajectories.

Discussion

This article explores the perceptions of rural-urban migrants of their call centre job in Kathmandu and the socio-cultural context that plays a role in these perceptions. Research participants’ perceptions about their call centre job were found to be both positive and negative. Perceptions such as skills development, specifically in English language, temporary work solution, fun place to work and fulfilling financial obligations/needs were found to be positive. Whereas monotonous work and lack of career prospects were found to be negative. These perceptions were not straightforward positive or negative though. Even though some participants benefitted from the call centre job in terms of finance, they did not perceive the job as their future. Findings from other studies on youth perceptions about working at call centres confirm that young employees do not see call centre work as a long-term employment prospect in their lives (Parikh 2018; Gorde 2018). Call centre jobs, just like other service centre jobs, lack progress and promotion of positions for a proper career. This causes young people to not envision long-term employment within the sector.

The participants’ positive or negative perceptions of call centre jobs are related to how these jobs are viewed in society. Their perceptions were at times reinforced through the influence of parents and peers. In addition, in a few cases, the prevalence and importance of certain jobs on television and their potential for providing social mobility also played a role in influencing the perceptions about jobs in young rural-urban migrants. These findings reveal that young people’s understanding and preferences for a job is that this job has to be socio-culturally valued in the sense that it brings prestige, and supports social mobility (Bista 1991; Valentin 2011; Yabiku and Schlabach 2009). Forsberg’s (2017) study in Sweden also confirms that societal norms and values play a strong role in young people’s perceptions and preferences about work in this sense.

Although the research benefitted from longitudinal analysis which provided in-depth information about young rural-urban migrants, there were a few significant limitations. It proved difficult to interview some participants in the second phase of the interview who participated in the first phase of the interview process. The call centre employers were often reluctant to provide information and to allow interviews with the young people. This was tackled by investing more time to connect with the call centres who were willing to support and use their network to identify other participants. This process also helped to win the trust of the young participants. However, it resulted in a small number of participants in the study.

The paper set out to explore the research participants’ perceptions about their call centre work and socio-cultural aspects that influence these perceptions, which reflect social generational processes on individual decision making (Kittel, Kalleitner, and Tsakloglou 2019; Forsberg 2017). Even though having a job is an important aspect for both young people and their family, the results indicate that young people and their family put emphasis on a job that is socio-culturally relevant and brings rewards. This shows how perceptions about a job are often shaped by the transmission of socio-cultural values within the family in a specific socio-economic context.

Some changes in the relationship of socio-cultural and transition have also been observed in this study: strikingly, the (explicit) influence of caste on job decisions was not found in this study. The changing socio-cultural context caused by education and migration could be a factor that helped to blur the lines of caste on job decision making. However, these findings should be interpreted with caution. This study was conducted with a small number of participants working at call centres. Future research could explore how jobs are understood in other sectors by rural-urban migrant youth and the relevance of socio-cultural context and gender roles in their perceptions of jobs. Further research might thus enable us to explore the perceptions of jobs in broader contexts among rural-urban migrants and the implications of these perceptions on their education to work transition.

Author contributions

Basnet Neha: Conceptualization, Methodology, data analysis, writing. M.C.Timmerman: Reviewing and editing. Josje van der Linden: Reviewing and editing.

Ethics approval

The study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Ethics committee of University of Groningen (RUG).

Consent to participate

The study used standard consent form with details of the project and it purpose. Consent forms were sent to the participants prior to the interview.

Consent for publication

Approval for the publication was taken from the participants in the consent form.

Availability of data and material/Code availability

The codes were generated manually. Data and codes will be made available upon request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by Netherlands Fellowship Programmes (grant number CF 13175).

Notes on contributors

Neha Basnet

Neha Basnet, studied youth education to work transitions at the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. She is a postdoctoral researcher at Amsterdam University of Medical Centre, The Netherlands. Her research focus is on youth, education, migration, program and project evaluations, and mixed research methods.

Margaretha C. Timmerman

Margaretha C. Timmerman is a professor (em) of youth studies at the University of Groningen. Her research focused on youth studies, social and educational youth issues, youth participation, learning communities, active learning, gender and diversity.

Josje van der Linden

Josje van der Linden is an assistant professor at the University of Groningen, focusing on lifelong learning. She holds a UNESCO chair on Lifelong learning, youth and work at Gulu University, Uganda. Her research agenda is centred on youth, education and work in (post-)conflict areas.