Educational attainment and unstable employment trajectories: an exploration of discordant cases

One of the variables that most influences the labour market trajectory of young people is their educational level. Thus, the labour market trajectories of individuals with low educational level are more unstable and have jobs with a lower income than those of other individuals with a different educational level. In this paper we first analyse the relationship between educational level and unstable labour market trajectories. Second, based on a sequence analysis, we classify the cases according to whether or not they are trajectories that illustrate each educational level. Third, we analyse the characteristics of the mobilized social contacts according to such classification. Lastly, we explore qualitatively the cases that do not follow the norm, i.e., the discordant cases, in order to explain qualitatively what makes them discordant. The data used for these analyses comes from a hybrid survey that gathers information on the longitudinal use of social contacts among young people with unstable labour market trajectories in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona. For those with the lowest educational level, discordant cases have a better employment trajectory than such individuals tend to have. The mobilisation of personal contacts is one of the drivers used to achieve this. For those with an intermediate educational level, discordant cases are characterized by a high proportion of unemployment or inactivity. Lastly, for those with a higher educational level, who have the lowest proportion of discordant cases, these are slightly more precarious than the illustrative ones.