Socioeconomic Background, Education, and Youth Work Transitions in Mexico City

Recent research in Mexico shows that the risk of suffering precarious work conditions is significantly higher among the youth. This situation has aggravated after the economic recession of 2008-2009. On the other hand, educational research indicates that the returns of education have decreased, thus rising labor market vulnerability even among those highly educated, who used to have a secured access to top-level occupations. These trends might suggest that labor market hardship has emerged as a widespread phenomenon among the Mexican youth, irrespectively of socioeconomic background and educational attainment.

Bus is this actually the case?

In the paper we explore this question by analyzing the early occupational transitions of a representative sample of 2,900 men and women between ages 18-19 who responded a retrospective survey on educational and occupational trajectories in Mexico City. We focus on the effects of socioeconomic background, educational attainment, and family events on four occupational transitions: the entry into the labor force, job shifts between jobs, exits from the labor force, and reentries into the labor force. Using event history analysis models, we devote special attention to the competing risks of entering into service class positions, intermediary occupations, and what we define as “low quality” occupations.

Results confirm, as earlier research has suggested, that a significant number of young individuals initiate their occupational lives in “low quality” occupations, and many stay there in subsequent job shifts/reentries. Also, risks of labor disqualification are significantly high among those with higher education. However, these risks remain closely associated to socioeconomic background and educational attainment. In this sense, far from replacing or blurring traditional inequalities by socioeconomic background and educational attainment, the rising labor market vulnerability of the youth in Mexico mounts onto these inequalities, reinforcing their negative effects.