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Negotiating uncertain economic times: Youth employment strategies in England
Author(s) -
Hoskins Bryony,
Leonard Pauline,
Wilde Rachel J.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
british educational research journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.171
H-Index - 89
eISSN - 1469-3518
pISSN - 0141-1926
DOI - 10.1002/berj.3318
Subject(s) - employability , negotiation , unemployment , higher education , work (physics) , demographic economics , longitudinal data , gateway (web page) , longitudinal study , sociology , labour economics , political science , economic growth , economics , social science , demography , mechanical engineering , statistics , mathematics , world wide web , computer science , engineering
Higher education is commonly understood as the gateway to better, higher‐paying jobs. This paper draws on longitudinal survey and interview data to explore how different groups of young people, those who left school at 18 and those graduating from higher education, negotiated pathways into employment or otherwise during the recent economic recessionary climate in England. While a mix of employment and unemployment featured in both groups, with temporary and unstable contracts more common than skilled and secure jobs, our evidence reveals that those with degrees were less likely to be in work at the ages of 22 to 23 than those who left school to enter employment at 18. In some contradistinction to popular discourses on the employability benefits of higher education therefore, entering paid work at 18 was a more effective strategy for being in employment five years later than proceeding into higher education.