This research was conducted to understand how socioeconomic disadvantage during childhood and early adulthood shapes young people’s transition into the labour market. While previous research has mainly focused on adult earnings and educational attainment, much less is known about whether disadvantage affects the types of jobs and employment pathways young adults experience at the beginning of their careers, including exposure to insecure or precarious work. The study also examines whether family resources, such as wealth, savings, and informal financial support, can protect young adults from adverse labour-market outcomes. Using longitudinal Australian data, the paper investigates how the timing, persistence, and sequencing of hardship between ages 4 and 24 influence labour-market pathways between ages 25 and 30.
The study finds that both childhood hardship and early-adult labour-market experiences are highly diverse. Persistent socioeconomic disadvantage before age 25 is strongly associated with adverse labour-market pathways in early adulthood, including insecure employment, low earnings, and greater exposure to labour-market risk. The results also show that family resources can moderate these effects, but mainly through short-term financial insurance and support rather than broader measures of wealth. Overall, family resources appear to reduce the likelihood of sustained disadvantage rather than enabling young adults to use precarious employment as a temporary or strategic stage in their careers.
The findings suggest that inequalities in labour-market outcomes begin well before labour-market entry and are shaped by long-term exposure to socioeconomic disadvantage. Policies aimed at reducing intergenerational inequality should therefore focus not only on education and later-life earnings, but also on supporting stable transitions from education into secure employment. The results also highlight the importance of family financial buffers in helping young adults manage labour-market insecurity, particularly in countries such as Australia, where welfare support for young adults is relatively targeted. This implies that public policies providing income support, housing assistance, employment protection, and transition support for young adults may help reduce inequalities that otherwise depend heavily on private family resources.