The young precariat: How the rise of precarious employment is reshaping youth inequality

Precarious employment (casual, insecure and with variable patterns of work) is increasing across the developed world. Young people are amongst the most likely to find themselves part of this growing sector of the labour market (Furlong and Kelly 2005). Drawing on interview and survey data from the Life Patterns study, a 20 year longitudinal study of the post-secondary school transitions in Australia, I explore how precarious employment (often mixed with study) impacts on young people’s lives and relationships. While many participants found themselves in casual work with poor conditions, this was only experienced as precarious for some participants. Many participants only spent brief periods of time in this type of employment before finding more secure positions and had the financial and other resources to manage its consequences. Some participants remained in ‘dead-end’ jobs with poor conditions for extended periods of time. This second group can be conceptualised as part of the ‘Precariat’ class (Standing 2011), as this engagement in the labour market made it difficult to develop a secure sense of career and to maintain relationships. The central mechanism through which precarious work impacted on relationships was through the scheduling of work time. Some participants spent years in work where the hours varied, sometimes each week and often with little notice. This shaped their lives in inconsistent and singular ways that made it challenging to find the regular periods of time together to maintain the strong relationships that can provide coping resources and a sense of identity. The growth of precarious employment means that control over time is functioning in a new way in the reproduction of inequality.