Life on a Tightrope: The Role of Precarious Employment on Moving Back Home

• In Event: 539 - Section on Labor and Labor Movements Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 02. Firm Strategies and Worker Outcomes, In the United States

Abstract

While there is increasing scholarly and public interest in precarious employment—jobs that entail a nonstandard contract, are short term, and/or do not provide fringe benefits—few studies have considered the effects of such employment beyond the workplace. I use panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (N=6650), and event history and propensity score matching methods, to examine the effect of precarious employment on home return and home leaving during young adulthood (age 25-30). Among young adults that have completed their education, had at least one job spell and one spell of living independently, I find significant negative effects of having a nonstandard contract job and of having a short term job on the probability of moving back home. On the other hand, having a job that provides health insurance and having a job with employer-provided retirement savings has a significant positive effect on leaving the parental home after a spell of living at home. This research suggests that it is not only earnings (which I adjust for in all models) that are important factors shaping young adults’ transition to independent living; rather, the uncertainty involved in precarious employment may force young adults to rely on their parents as a safety net well into their late 20s.

Author

• Yelizavetta Kofman, University of California-Los Angeles