Preparing for Successful Transitions between Education and Employment in the Twenty-First Century
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Preparing for Successful Transitions between Education and Employment in the Twenty-First Century Jenny Chesters 1 Received: 19 September 2019 / Revised: 19 April 2020 / Accepted: 22 April 2020 # Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020
Abstract The restructuring of the labour market due to the twin forces of rapid technological changes and globalisation has changed the employment landscape, thus, impacting upon transitions between education and employment. Young people seeking to avoid low-skill, low-paid employment have been encouraged to complete high-level educational qualifications before entering the labour market. Thus, youth are experiencing protracted transitions between education and employment and the period during which they are dependent on their families is lengthening. Whether these investments in highlevel educational credentials are rewarded in the labour market is the focus of this study. Drawing on survey data collected by the Life Patterns project, I find that the association between having a high level of education and securing permanent full-time employment is weaker than expected. Furthermore, level of education is not associated with levels of job satisfaction. Analysis of comments provided by the participants suggests that there is a level of disenchantment with the breakdown of the relationship between high levels of education and full-time employment. Keywords Transitions . Life patterns . Young adulthood . Employment
Introduction In the past few decades, the rapid pace of technological advances coupled with increasing globalisation has resulted in the restructuring of labour markets from industrial to post-industrial. As Kalleberg (2009) notes, the spatial restructuring of labour markets has occurred on a global scale, dismantling national employment
* Jenny Chesters [email protected]
1
Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Journal of Applied Youth Studies
hierarchies. Furthermore, the pyramid structure of industrial era labour markets has been replaced by an hourglass structure due to the polarization of jobs into those requiring high levels of skill and those requiring low levels of skill (Kalleberg 2011). This trend is particularly prevalent in liberal market economies (Kalleberg 2012), such as Australia, which were early adopters of neoliberal economic policies. Neoliberalism is based on a belief that market forces are best placed to distribute resources therefore governments should refrain from interfering with the conduct of markets (Harvey 2010; Piketty 2014). Consequently, labour market conditions have deteriorated, wages for low-paid workers have stagnated, and young people, in particular, have found entry into full-time employment more difficult (Cebulla and Whetton 2017; Furlong et al. 2017; Hardgrove et al. 2015). Being employed on a permanent full-time basis (that is working at least 35 hours per week in a job with an ongoing contract) is an important marker of adulthood (Mills et al. 2005), all
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