L-earning: rethinking young women’s working lives

Description

Most young people do paid work before they finish school or college. For those who continue their studies at university, paid work is increasingly common due to rising student fees and a spiraling cost-of-living crisis. Girls and young women are especially likely to undertake paid work alongside their studies. Common jobs include babysitter, retail cashier and waitress, and – increasingly – many engage in income-generating activities involving digital platforms such as Etsy, Depop and Instagram.

Whilst previous studies have suggested that gender inequalities exist even in these early forms of work, we still know little about the detail of young people’s first experiences of work, nor how these may engender longer-term patterns and establish differences between men’s and women’s working lives that we know grow as workers get older. Indeed, even though young women now outperform men in education, and outnumber them in higher education, by the time they hit their 30s, working women experience a growing gender pay gap.

Research overview

The study’s overarching objective is to provide empirically evidenced, policy-relevant knowledge that advances theoretical understandings of young women’s working lives, and the experiences, knowledge, values and structural conditions that shape them.

To achieve this, we will utilise a range of methods to examine different phenomena, including: analysis of existing national surveys for drawing out large-scale patterns, trends over time and over individual life-courses; focus groups and interviews with 180 young women (14-29 years old) to drill deeper into key issues, including views on good work, past experiences and transitions, and hopes for the future; and interviews and roundtables with stakeholder representatives to ensure the research has broad impact.

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This project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council ‘Transforming Working Lives’ initiative, Grant reference: ES/W009870/1.

Publications and outputs

Journal articles

Briefings

Media

Contact

Dr Kim Allen

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