Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Although broad labour market transformations have altered employment prospects for young people in the Global North, young people remain optimistic about their future employment opportunities. However, there is relatively little research on variations in young people’s perceptions. Using data from the Finnish Youth Barometer Survey, we address this gap by analysing young people’s perceived employment insecurity—that is, feelings of insecurity about future employment chances. We analyse first the determinants of employment insecurity and second the relationship between non-standard work contracts and employment insecurity in the employed group. The finding showed that economic downturns, immigrant background and unemployment status are associated with insecurity. Having a non-standard contract was associated with more insecurity. Young women feel more insecure than men. This is partly explained by the concentration of non-standard contracts among women. Our results show that there are differences in employment insecurity among young people and that young people react to economic downturns.

Keywords

Young people employment insecurity precariousness non-standard work work

Introduction

Broad production and labour market transformations, such as the transition to post-Fordist economies, deregulation and technological developments, have altered job prospects for young people in the Global North (Green, 2019; Nedelkoska & Quintini, 2018). Young people work more often with non-standard employment contracts and are disproportionately affected by cyclical economic crises (Alatalo et al., 2017; Bessant et al., 2017; Choudhry et al., 2012; Pyöriä & Ojala, 2016).

In this context, it may sound surprising that young people in Europe remain optimistic about their futures in general and in working life specifically (Épiphane & Sulzer, 2008; Franceschelli & Keating, 2018; Lübke & Erlinghagen, 2014; Nikunen & Korvajärvi, 2020). They continue to imagine work as a relatively unquestionable part of their biographies (Ågren, 2021; Heggli et al., 2013; Honkatukia & Lähde, 2020; McDonald et al., 2011). Finnish young people ranked having an interesting job as one of their most important life goals by the age of 35 (Myllyniemi, 2016, p. 27), while half of them were confident of obtaining a ‘good job’ in the future (Galland, 2008).

The relative mismatch between objective conditions and subjective perceptions has been explained by individualization processes and epistemological fallacy (Furlong & Cartmel, 2007)—namely, the misperception of the power of individual agency in shaping individual life courses. This tendency has been further deepened by neoliberal policy practices and the associated mode of subjectivity that highlights faith in meritocracy, choice, self-reliance, an entrepreneurial mindset and optimism (Franceschelli & Keating, 2018; Nikunen & Korvajärvi, 2020; Scharff, 2016). Franceschelli and Keating (2018) suggest that optimism stems from young people’s meritocratic belief that hard work continues to pay off, although privileged and underprivileged youths employ this belief differently.

Subjective insecurity about working life is linked to, for example, lower life satisfaction and happiness in young people (Hellevik & Hellevik, 2021; Klug et al., 2019) and in the total working population (De Cuyper et al., 2019). However, we lack research on variations in young people’s perceptions. Existing qualitative research shows that there are intersecting gendered (McDonald et al., 2011), place-based (Allen & Hollingworth, 2013; Franceschelli & Keating, 2018) and classed differences (Franceschelli & Keating, 2018; Ikonen, 2020) in young people’s perceptions of their futures in working life.

Using data from the Finnish Youth Barometer (YB) from 2009, 2013, 2016 and 2019, this article analyses the determinants of young people’s perceptions of their futures in working life. The YB is an annual population-based survey of young people’s (15–29 years) attitudes and values in Finland. In our analysis, we used the concept of ‘employment insecurity’, which refers to subjective feelings of insecurity about future employment (Chung & van Oorschot, 2011). The first aim of the article is to analyse the determinants of subjective employment insecurity among young people, focusing on the variations observed in youth studies. To this end, we analyse how age, gender, educational level, main activity, foreign background and place of residence are associated with employment insecurity and extend this analysis to include economic cycles. Then, we explore one of the key labour market transformations, non-standard employment and focus on the respondents whose main activity was being employed. The second aim of the article is to analyse how a non-standard work contract is associated with subjective employment insecurity at the beginning of working life.

Employment Insecurity

Young people’s work-related insecurities are usually understood through the concept of precarious employment, which refers to the objective dimension of precarity—that is, to the rise of non-standard forms of work (fixed-term, zero-hour and platform work) and the erosion of working conditions, such as weak work community, limited access to benefits and low wages. These transformations are associated with post-Fordist labour market transformations and neoliberal deregulation (Kalleberg, 2011). In broader terms, youth studies understand precarity as a political process that increases economic and social inequalities, erodes societal safety nets and governs through insecurity (e.g. Bessant et al., 2017).

In this article, however, we use a more specific concept than precarity: subjective employment insecurity. Instead of objective employment relations, the term refers to individuals’ perceptions of the chances of achieving continuous and secure employment in the future¹ (Chung & Mau, 2014; Chung & van Oorschot, 2011). Related scholarship also uses the concept of employability which refers to individuals’ perceptions of available alternative job opportunities (De Cuyper et al., 2019, p. 175), focusing particularly on how employability mitigates the negative effects produced by fear of job loss or unemployment on job satisfaction, health and well-being (De Cuyper et al., 2019; Green, 2011). It can be argued that the concept of employment security highlights the subjective assessment of the general labour market situation and the concept of employability the subjective assessment of one’s personal skills and characteristics. In this article we highlight that both are future-oriented concepts, inviting people to assess their future chances in the labour market. We maintain that employment insecurity involves assessments of both one’s personal characteristics and skills and the general economic and labour market situation (Sutela et al., 2019, p. 217) and consider that employment insecurity refers to how young people perceive their general future possibilities in working life. Most studies on employment insecurity focus only on the working population or the workforce (Chung, 2019; Chung & van Oorschot, 2011; De Cuyper et al., 2019; see, however, Green, 2011), even when the study population is young people (Klug et al., 2019; Peiró et al., 2012). In this article, we focus on all young people (15–29 years) because our interest is to understand the expectations and insecurities related to personal work-futures as an element of growing up.

Previous Research on Young People’s Perceptions of Future Employment and the Finnish Context

In this section, to narrow down our hypothesis, we review the literature on young people’s perceptions of their futures in the labour market and the determinants of employment insecurity, combining it with an overview of the economic and labour market situation in Finland. Youth studies tend to be qualitative, while research on employment insecurity is quantitative, concentrating on cross-country variations. We use both to provide a comprehensive literature overview.

Although young people seem optimistic about future work in general, employment insecurity is strongly linked to economic cycles and labour market conditions. Economic crises and the economic and labour market conditions are persistent determinants of employment insecurity (Chung & van Oorschot, 2010). Young people are more sensitive to economic fluctuations compared to the general population (Lübke & Erlinghagen, 2014). The dataset used in this article covers the period following the global financial crisis (GFC, 2007–2008). The GFC hit Finland badly, with the Gross domestic product (GDP) dropping 8.5% in 2009. This was followed by slow economic growth, a second downturn in 2012–2014 (0.9% drop in GDP in 2013) and modest growth from 2015 to 2019. The year 2016 showed the largest GDP growth during the period (2.81%), while in 2019, GDP growth was modest at 1.27% (Suni & Vihriälä, 2016). Both the youth unemployment rate and the share of young people not in employment or education (NEET) rose significantly during the crisis (OECD, 2021, 2022).

Labour market policies are also related to employment insecurity. Increased funding for active labour market policies (ALMPs) is linked to lower levels of employment insecurity in young people which indicates that young people perceive having more work or training opportunities as a result. However, investments in ALMPs are also associated with higher employment insecurity for the general working population because such policies might raise concerns about the economy and the availability of jobs (Lübke & Erlinghagen, 2014).

Significant policy development in youth employment coincided with the middle points of the dataset. In 2013, the Finnish government reintroduced a youth policy programme, Youth Guarantee, to provide young people with new training and work opportunities in connection with ALMPs.² Youth Guarantee was launched with a large-scale publicity campaign and was allocated funding of 60 million euros annually for 2013–2015. As a result, compared to the situation before the Youth Guarantee, young people were offered stronger guidance and enhanced opportunities for training, internships and work placements (Tuusa et al., 2014). At the same time, the extant economic crisis, rising youth unemployment and NEET rates and the highly publicized Youth Guarantee programme generated intense public concern about youth marginalization and social exclusion in Finland, with young people being presented as vulnerable and at a high risk of marginalization (Lähteenmaa, 2021).

Deregulation and flexible work arrangements are usually considered key drivers of precarity, and having a fixed-term contract is a constant predictor of subjective employment insecurity (Kiersztyn, 2017; Klug et al., 2019). The gap in subjective employment insecurity between permanent and fixed-term workers is particularly large in Finland (Chung, 2019). At the same time, part-time work is not associated with increased subjective insecurity, usually because part-time work is often voluntary (Chung, 2019; Dixon et al., 2013).

Although youth unemployment has been relatively high, along with public investments in ALMPs for young people, the Finnish labour market is considered less precarious compared to that of other European countries (Puig-Barrachina et al., 2014; Pyöriä & Ojala, 2016). Measured with the composite indicator early job insecurity index which measures the structures of youth labour market, Finland is a middle-performing country (Karamessini et al., 2019, pp. 35–36). In terms of young people’s (15–29 years) non-standard employment, the share of fixed-term contracts has slightly decreased during the last 15 years (36% in 2005 vs. 33% in 2019), while the share of part-time contracts has increased (26% in 2005 vs. 30% in 2019).³ Young people are overrepresented in both groups because in 2018, 18% of the total population had fixed-term contracts and 14% had part-time contracts (Sutela et al., 2019, pp. 52–56). Finnish young people particularly take up marginal part-time work (< 15 hours/week). However, the higher share of non-standard contracts among young people is not a straightforward indicator of young people’s marginal labour market position, as many of the young workers are full-time students whose contract type depends more on them being students than young people (Ojala et al., 2021). To the best of our knowledge, no previous studies have focused specifically on students’ subjective employment insecurity.

The results regarding gender differences in employment insecurity are mixed. In Finland, young women are generally more optimistic about the future (Myllyniemi, 2017, p. 36). At the same time, their relationship to future work life is complex, as their optimism partly relies on their individualized faith in their efforts rather than on favourable structural conditions. Therefore, their optimism can be easily undercut by feelings of not doing enough (Ikonen, 2020). Other studies have found that women are likely to experience employment insecurity due to, for example, the lack of human capital or differences in attitudes (Chung & van Oorschot, 2010). Such explanations are less relevant in Finland because women’s rate of participation in working life is high, and women have higher educational levels than men (48% of women vs. 33% of men had tertiary education in the age group of 30–34 years in 2020) (Official Statistics of Finland, n.d.). In Finland, the welfare state also provides strong support for combining work and family by providing services and benefits such as affordable public childcare.

However, women and men have different educational and labour market positions. In all age groups, women are overrepresented in both fixed-term and part-time contracts (Ojala et al., 2021). The same tendency is clear for young people: in 2019, 38% of young women and 29% of young men (15–29 years) had a fixed-term contract, and the share of part-time contracts was almost double among young women (40%) compared to young men (21%).⁴ This disparity is partly caused by high gender segregation in the Finnish labour market. Women work in (public) social and health, education and hospitality sectors, and men work in construction, transportation and warehousing (Statistics Finland, 2021). Pyöriä and Ojala (2016, pp. 362–363) showed that a distinctive feature of the Finnish labour market is the concentration of fixed-term contracts among highly educated public sector employees. Consequently, women’s position in the labour market is ambivalent: they have higher educational qualifications while being insecure in terms of employment relationships and have high prospects of reemployment due to labour shortages in care and education.

Contemporary Finnish labour markets require a more skilled workforce than before. Thus, having only compulsory education (nine years) is linked with significantly lower employment levels (Sipilä et al., 2011). However, educational level is difficult to define because it changes over time, particularly in younger age groups. In 2019, 8.8% of the people aged 17–24 years had no post-compulsory education and were not studying. This number has decreased significantly over the past 20 years (Tilasto- ja indikaattoripankki Sotkanet, n.d.). Higher levels of education are associated with less employment insecurity (Klug et al., 2019), but the relationship between educational level and employment insecurity for youths is not straightforward. For example, young people from all backgrounds fear for their future work (Ikonen, 2020) but also share the individualized faith that their success depends on their personal hard work (Franceschelli & Keating, 2018).

Based on this review, for both aims of the article, we expect the years of economic downturn (2009 and 2013) to be associated with more insecurity and the years of economic upturn (2016 and 2019) with less insecurity. We expect women to be less likely to feel insecure due to their higher educational status. Furthermore, we expect youths without post-compulsory education to perceive higher levels of insecurity. For the second aim, as the analysis concerns only employed respondents, we expect fixed-term contracts (but not part-time contracts) to be associated with greater levels of insecurity.

Materials and Methods

Data

We analysed the data from the YB, an annual representative survey on young people’s values and attitudes. The YB repeats core questions, while its theme changes yearly. The survey has been conducted with approximately 2,000 young people (aged 15–29) since 1994. We used the data from 2009, 2013, 2016 and 2019, which contained the question concerning subjective insecurity about future employment (I am worried about my future work prospects/Olen huolissani siitä, onko minulla töitä tulevaisuudessa). The question was introduced in 2009 as a consequence of the GFC and its effects on youth unemployment. Except for regional information and gender in 2009, all responses in the YB are self-reported. In 2009, gender was derived from population registers (self-reported since 2012). Regional information is derived from the residency address data.

The YB is assembled based on telephone interviews conducted by a contracted service provider. The study population consists of people aged 15–29 years living in continental Finland. The respondents are selected at random from population registers, and their telephone numbers are then retrieved from the service provider’s number directory. Target quotas for the interviews are defined variably based on age, gender and place of residence (defined using the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics [NUTS] level 2 or level 3). The first language was added as a quota-defining variable in 2014. In recent years, given that fewer young people have registered phone numbers, data collection has become more difficult, requiring a larger sample and more calls (Table 1).

Table 1.

Information on Youth Barometer Execution by Year

Year	Population Register Sample Size	Valid Phone Numbers	Interviews Conducted¹	Time of Interviews	Weighting Variables	Question on Part-time and Temporary Contract	Other Notes
2009	9,500	5,149	1,900	April–May	Age, language,gender and province	Yes	Gender from registers. No quota for first language.
2013	22,215	8,725	1,902	May–July	Age, gender and NUTS 2 region²	No	Gender from registers.
2016	18,000	18,000	1,901	April–July	Age, gender and NUTS 2 region²	No	Population register sample included phone numbers. Quota for gender, age group and first language.
2019	65,129	26,236	1,907	April–May	Age, language and gender	Yes	Quota for gender, age group and first language.

Source: The authors’ data from the Finnish Youth Barometer 2009, 2013, 2016 and 2019.

Notes: ¹ Interview count contains pilot interviews which were excluded from this study.

² NUTS = Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics.

There were 7,611 responses available in the data. We removed a total of 33 pilot responses. In the YB, pilot interviews are conducted to adjust the length of the interviews and possibly the wording of some of the questions. The structure of the questionnaire is usually updated after the pilot interviews, meaning that the context of certain questions may change between the pilots and subsequent interviews. In addition to the pilots, we removed one response because the respondent was too old (over 29 years), seven responses because of missing or non-binary gender identification and 121 responses because the answer to the question on employment insecurity was missing. This resulted in a final sample of 7,449 responses which became 7,451 responses after applying weights. The YB samples were relatively similar across the years (Table 2). The main difference was that the share of foreign language speakers was relatively small in 2009 and 2013 because quotas for the first language were used only in 2016 and 2019. In 2009, the share of mothers with tertiary education was lower because the option for Polytechnic was only introduced in the subsequent year. The share of part-time contracts among the employed increased between 2009 and 2019 (13% vs. 21%), while the share of fixed-term contracts decreased (40% vs. 29%; Table 2). Our regression analysis took these compositional changes into account.

Table 2.

Demographics of the Respondents by Sample Year

	2009		2013		2016		2019
	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%
Subjective employment insecurity
Yes	730	41.1	921	48.8	899	47.4	677	35.9
No	1,046	58.9	968	51.2	998	52.6	1,211	64.1
Gender
Men	886	49.9	965	51.1	971	51.2	971	51.4
Women	890	50.1	925	48.9	926	48.8	918	48.6
Municipality grouping
Urban	1,402	79.0	1,367	72.3	1,464	77.2	1,462	77.4
Semi-urban	175	9.9	278	14.7	230	12.1	227	12.0
Rural	198	11.2	245	13.0	203	10.7	199	10.6
NUTS 2 regions
Helsinki-Uusimaa	519	29.2	551	29.2	595	31.4	518	27.4
Southern Finland	363	20.5	380	20.1	380	20.1	375	19.8
Western Finland	472	26.6	464	24.6	477	25.2	508	26.9
Northern and Eastern Finland	421	23.7	494	26.1	444	23.4	488	25.8
Age group
15–19	601	33.8	600	31.8	587	31.0	571	30.2
20–24	566	31.9	647	34.2	658	34.7	635	33.6
25–29	608	34.3	642	34.0	651	34.3	683	36.1
First language
Finnish	1,682	94.7	1,793	94.9	1,710	90.2	1,683	89.1
Swedish	79	4.5	95	5.0	98	5.1	92	4.9
Other	14	0.8	2	0.1	89	4.7	114	6.1
Main activity
Student	868	48.9	799	42.3	835	44.0	872	46.2
Salaried worker/Employed	659	37.1	778	41.2	702	37.0	711	37.6
Entrepreneur	6	0.3	36	1.9	53	2.8	60	3.2
Unemployed	101	5.7	140	7.4	151	8.0	113	6.0
Other	138	7.7	127	6.7	149	7.9	130	6.9
N/A	4	0.2	10	0.5	6	0.3	3	0.2
Only basic education after 22
No	1,739	97.9	1,835	97.1	1,869	98.5	1,861	98.5
Yes	37	2.1	55	2.9	28	1.5	27	1.5
Housing
Alone or shared	622	35.0	509	26.9	556	29.3	701	37.1
With spouse	396	22.3	387	20.5	436	23.0	442	23.4
With spouse and children	137	7.7	191	10.1	150	7.9	152	8.1
Single parent	18	1.0	18	1.0	11	0.6	14	0.7
With parents or custodians	600	33.8	746	39.5	685	36.1	561	29.7
Other	2	0.1	37	2.0	56	2.9	17	0.9
Mother's education
Vocational degree	805	45.3	594	31.4	561	29.6	608	32.2
General upper secondary or short-cycle tertiary degree	315	17.7	369	19.5	336	17.7	338	17.9
University (incl. Polytechnics) degree	307	17.3	627	33.2	747	39.4	699	37.0
No degree	166	9.4	119	6.3	106	5.6	104	5.5
No mother/ Cannot say	182	10.3	181	9.6	147	7.7	139	7.3
Full-time employment¹
Full-time	571	86.6					557	78.3
Part-time	88	13.4					150	21.1
N/A	0	0.0	778	100.0	702	100.0	4	0.6
Permanent employment¹
Permanent	397	60.2					499	70.2
Fixed contract	263	39.8					205	28.8
N/A	0	0.0	778	100.0	702	100.0	7	1.0

Source: The authors’ findings. Data used are from the Finnish Youth Barometer 2009, 2013, 2016 and 2019.

Notes: Totals may not sum up correctly due to weighting and rounding. NUTS = Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics.¹ Only respondents whose main activity was employment. Not asked in 2013 and 2016.

Measures

Subjective employment insecurity

The response variable in our analysis was employment insecurity. The variable indicating employment insecurity was derived from the following statement: ‘I am worried about my future work prospects’ (‘Olen huolissani siitä, onko minulla töitä tulevaisuudessa’). The respondents had to assess the statement using the following five options: strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree and cannot say. For statistical modelling, the options ‘agree’ and ‘strongly agree’ were grouped together to signify that the respondents experienced employment insecurity. In total, 43% of the respondents reported experiencing employment insecurity.

Covariates

We used the data collection years (2009, 2013, 2016 and 2019) as a measure of the economic cycle. The first two time points (2009 and 2013) represented an economic downturn, while the latter two (2016 and 2019) represented an economic upturn. In 2009 and 2019, respondents who reported that their main activity was being employed were asked about their contract type. Based on the responses, we defined two variables, indicating employment status (permanent/fixed-term and full-time/part-time).

For gender, we use a binary definition (men/women). Since 2012, the YB has used a non-binary definition, allowing the respondents to indicate their gender with the choices of male, female, other and cannot say or refuse to answer. The latter two categories were however excluded from the analysis because they were not available for all years and because the number of respondents was small (7). Four of these seven respondents (57%) reported employment insecurity.

For educational level, we used the binary measure ‘only basic education after the age of 22’. In the YB questionnaire, respondents are asked about their highest completed education and their current studies. The options are defined in terms of the Finnish educational system (compulsory school, vocational school, high school, university of applied sciences, university and other). Our measure included respondents who were aged 22 years and over, did not have a post-compulsory degree and were not studying at the time of the survey. This construction excluded respondents who were likely to gain education later on. The decision to use this variable instead of reported educational level was based on the lack of harmonization between survey years in the respondent group and the fact that having only compulsory education is associated with significantly lower employment levels in Finland, rather than the type of completed post-compulsory education (Sipilä et al., 2011). The age limit of 22 years was based on evidence that after the age of 22, young people are less likely to continue their education (Korpela & Jauhiainen, 2022).

For the first aim about the determinants of employment insecurity in young people, we controlled for main activity (student, employed/salaried worker, entrepreneur, unemployed and other). The response choices were harmonized between the study years. The group other included respondents in military or non-military service, on parental leave, in preparatory courses or with different forms of pension. For the second aim regarding the relationship between contract type and employment insecurity, we only analysed the respondents who reported that their main activity was employed/salaried worker, excluding working students.

Control variables

In addition, we controlled for age, foreign background (using self-reported first language as a proxy for foreign background), housing situation (alone, shared, with a spouse, with a spouse and children, single parent, with own parents or custodians and other), mother’s education and place of residence. The two variables indicating residence were derived from the data. The municipality grouping (urban, semi-urban and rural) was based on the classification of Statistics Finland. The variable region was based on the NUTS 2 regions and was created using level 2 of the classification from 2021. Four regions were defined: the capital area of Helsinki-Uusimaa, Southern Finland, Western Finland and Northern and Eastern Finland. Both variables were created by linking postal codes to the Statistics Finland data.

Statistical Analysis

The demographics of the data are presented with cross-tabulation and percentages; P values were computed using the chi-squared test. Odds ratios (OR) and their 95% confidence intervals (CI) are presented. P values were not corrected for multiple comparisons. Analyses were performed with SPSS (v. 27.0.0).

Determinants of employment insecurity were modelled with logistic regression after binarizing the responses. We employed three models. The first two models analysed the determinants of employment insecurity in all young people. The first model only controlled for age, gender and self-reported first language. In the second model, municipality grouping, NUTS 2 region, household type, mother’s education, year of the survey and main occupation were added as further covariates. The third model concentrated on the role of non-standard contracts. For the third analysis, we investigated the association of having a part-time contract and having a fixed-term contract with employment insecurity among respondents whose main activity was being employed. The questions on part-time and fixed-term employment were asked only in 2009 and 2019, so the third analysis consisted only of respondents from 2009 and 2019. Respondents in the housing group ‘other’ were dropped (n = 5) due to separation in this last model, resulting in a sample size of 1,362.

Results

Respondents’ Characteristics

A little less than half of the respondents were women (49%), and they were evenly distributed across age groups (Table 3). The majority lived in the Helsinki metropolitan region and in Southern Finland (29% and 20%, respectively) and urban municipalities (76%). Most were Finnish speakers (92%), 5% were Swedish speakers and 3% reported that their first language was other than Finnish or Swedish. 2% had only nine years of education after the age of 22. Although there is no comparable figure in the official statistics, in 2019, 8.8% of the people aged 17–24 years were in a similar position (Tilasto- ja indikaattoripankki Sotkanet, n.d.). Women were likelier than men to have fixed-term (43% vs. 27%) and part-time (22% vs. 13%) contracts, and the differences were statistically significant (P < 0.001). Even though these figures cannot be compared to the official statistics because they were calculated based on the main activity, the overrepresentation of women in both groups is clear.

Nearly half (48%) of the women agreed or agreed strongly with the statement on subjective employment insecurity, whereas only 39% of the men agreed. Less employment insecurity was also reported by older and Swedish-speaking respondents. The lowest levels of employment insecurity were reported by entrepreneurs, of whom only 28% reported agreeing or agreeing strongly with the question. The proportionally highest levels of employment insecurity were among the unemployed (62%). Full-time and permanent employment also had a statistically significant (P < 0.05) association with employment insecurity which was approximately 10 percentage points more prevalent among respondents with part-time or fixed-term contracts (Table 3).

Table 3.

Demographics of the Respondents by Subjective Employment Insecurity

			Subjective Employment Insecurity
	Total		No		Yes
	n	%	n	%	n	%	p¹
Total	7,451	100.0 %	4,222	56.7 %	3,228	43.3 %
Gender							<0.001
Men	3,792	50.9 %	2,319	61.2 %	1,473	38.8 %
Women	3,658	49.1 %	1,903	52.0 %	1,755	48.0 %
Municipality grouping							0.575
Urban	5,695	76.4 %	3,224	56.6 %	2,471	43.4 %
Semi-urban	910	12.2 %	507	55.7 %	403	44.3 %
Rural	846	11.4 %	492	58.2 %	354	41.8 %
NUTS 2 regions							0.139
Helsinki-Uusimaa	2,182	29.3 %	1,275	58.4 %	907	41.6 %
Southern Finland	1,499	20.1 %	830	55.4 %	669	44.6 %
Western Finland	1,921	25.8 %	1,096	57.1 %	825	42.9 %
Northern and Eastern Finland	1,849	24.8 %	1,021	55.2 %	828	44.8 %
Age group							<0.001
15–19	2,358	31.6 %	1,256	53.3 %	1,102	46.7 %
20–24	2,512	33.7 %	1,439	57.3 %	1,073	42.7 %
25–29	2,581	34.6 %	1,528	59.2 %	1,053	40.8 %
First language							<0.001
Finnish	6,870	92.2 %	3,882	56.5 %	2,988	43.5 %
Swedish	363	4.9 %	243	66.9 %	120	33.1 %
Other	219	2.9 %	98	44.7 %	121	55.3 %
Main activity							<0.001
Student	3,376	45.3 %	1,864	55.2 %	1,512	44.8 %
Salaried worker/ Employee	2,851	38.3 %	1,764	61.9 %	1,087	38.1 %
Entrepreneur	156	2.1 %	112	71.8 %	44	28.2 %
Unemployed	504	6.8 %	193	38.3 %	311	61.7 %
Other	542	7.3 %	279	51.5 %	263	48.5 %
Only basic education after 22							0.965
No	7,304	98.0 %	4,139	56.7 %	3,165	43.3 %
Yes	146	2.0 %	83	56.8 %	63	43.2 %
Housing							<0.001
Alone or shared	2,390	32.1 %	1,373	57.4 %	1,017	42.6 %
With spouse	1,662	22.3 %	985	59.3 %	677	40.7 %
With spouse and children	630	8.5 %	393	62.4 %	237	37.6 %
Single parent	60	0.8 %	39	65.0 %	21	35.0 %
With parents or custodians	2,592	34.8 %	1,367	52.7 %	1,225	47.3 %
Other	112	1.5 %	61	54.5 %	51	45.5 %
Mother's education							0.027
Vocational degree	2,567	34.5 %	1,472	57.3 %	1,095	42.7 %
General upper secondary or short-cycle tertiary degree	1,359	18.2 %	783	57.6 %	576	42.4 %
University (incl. Polytechnics) degree	2,380	31.9 %	1,364	57.3 %	1,016	42.7 %
No degree	496	6.7 %	274	55.2 %	222	44.8 %
No mother/Cannot say	648	8.7 %	329	50.8 %	319	49.2 %
Year							<0.001
2009	1,776	23.8 %	1,045	58.8 %	731	41.2 %
2013	1,889	25.4 %	968	51.2 %	921	48.8 %
2016	1,897	25.5 %	998	52.6 %	899	47.4 %
2019	1,888	25.3 %	1,211	64.1 %	677	35.9 %
Full-time employment²							0.003
Full-time	1,128	15.1 %	761	67.5 %	367	32.5 %
Part-time	239	3.2 %	137	57.3 %	102	42.7 %
Permanent employment²							<0.001
Permanent	896	12.0 %	622	69.4 %	274	30.6 %
Fixed contract	468	6.3 %	276	59.0 %	192	41.0 %

Source: The authors’ findings. Data used are from the Finnish Youth Barometer 2009, 2013, 2016 and 2019.

Notes: Totals may not sum up correctly due to weighting and rounding. NUTS = Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics.¹ Chi-squared test.² Only respondents from 2009 and 2019 whose main occupation was employment.

Regression Models

Model 1 indicated that men and older people reported experiencing less employment insecurity (exp(OR) 0.69, 95% CI 0.63–0.76 and exp(OR) 0.98, 95% CI 0.97–0.99, respectively) (Table 4). Compared to Finnish-speaking respondents, Swedish speakers reported lower employment insecurity, and speakers of other languages reported higher employment insecurity.

Table 4.

Regression Models for Employment Insecurity

	Model 1						Model 2						Model 3
					95% CI						95% CI						95% CI
	OR	s.e.	P	exp (OR)	Lower	Upper	OR	s.e.	P	exp (OR)	Lower	Upper	OR	s.e.	P	exp (OR)	Lower	Upper
Intercept	0.44	0.13	<0.001	1.55			–0.317	0.23	0.16	0.73			–1.252	0.59	0.03	0.29
Male gender	–0.369	0.05	<0.001	0.69	0.63	0.76	–0.411	0.05	<0.001	0.66	0.60	0.73	–0.254	0.12	0.04	0.78	0.61	0.98
Age (years)	–0.023	0.01	<0.001	0.98	0.97	0.99	0.01	0.01	0.49	1.01	0.99	1.02	0.02	0.02	0.28	1.02	0.98	1.07
First language (ref. Finnish)
Swedish	–0.437	0.12	<0.001	0.65	0.52	0.81	–0.393	0.12	<0.001	0.68	0.54	0.85	–0.423	0.31	0.17	0.66	0.36	1.20
Other	0.45	0.14	0.00	1.57	1.20	2.07	0.62	0.15	<0.001	1.86	1.40	2.48	1.44	0.32	<0.001	4.23	2.27	7.88
Municipality grouping (ref. Urban)
Semi-urban							0.02	0.08	0.80	1.02	0.88	1.18	–0.236	0.23	0.29	0.79	0.51	1.23
Rural							–0.071	0.08	0.38	0.93	0.80	1.09	–0.225	0.21	0.28	0.80	0.53	1.20
NUTS 2 regions (ref. Helsinki-Uusimaa)
Southern Finland							0.14	0.07	0.06	1.14	1.00	1.31	0.01	0.17	0.95	1.01	0.72	1.42
Western Finland							0.10	0.07	0.13	1.11	0.97	1.26	0.24	0.17	0.15	1.26	0.92	1.75
Northern and Eastern Finland							0.15	0.07	0.03	1.16	1.02	1.33	0.35	0.17	0.04	1.42	1.01	1.99
Mother's education (ref. No education)
Vocational degree							–0.044	0.10	0.67	0.96	0.78	1.17	0.23	0.23	0.32	1.26	0.80	1.99
General upper secondary or short-cycle tertiary degree							–0.083	0.11	0.45	0.92	0.74	1.14	0.30	0.26	0.25	1.35	0.81	2.25
University (incl. Polytechnics) degree							0.074	0.11	0.48	0.93	0.76	1.14	0.35	0.25	0.17	1.42	0.87	2.32
No mother/Can/Will not say							0.19	0.13	0.14	1.20	0.94	1.54	0.55	0.30	0.07	1.74	0.96	3.15
Barometer year (ref. 2009)
2013							0.35	0.07	<0.001	1.42	1.24	1.63	–	–	–	–	–	–
2016							0.26	0.07	<0.001	1.30	1.13	1.49	–	–	–	–	–	–
2019							–0.226	0.07	0.00	0.80	0.69	0.92	–0.711	0.13	<0.001	0.49	0.38	0.63
Housing (ref. Alone or shared)
With spouse							–0.068	0.07	0.32	0.94	0.82	1.07	–0.014	0.14	0.92	0.99	0.76	1.29
With spouse and children							–0.349	0.10	<0.001	0.71	0.58	0.86	–0.491	0.22	0.03	0.61	0.39	0.95
Single parent							–0.611	0.28	0.03	0.54	0.31	0.94	–0.133	0.62	0.83	0.88	0.26	2.97
With parents or custodians							0.13	0.07	0.09	1.13	0.98	1.31	0.07	0.22	0.76	1.07	0.69	1.66
Other¹							0.01	0.20	0.96	1.01	0.68	1.50	–	–	–	–	–	–
Main occupation (ref. Student)
Salaried worker/employee							–0.199	0.06	0.00	0.82	0.73	0.92	–	–	–	–	–	–
Entrepreneur							–0.609	0.19	0.00	0.54	0.37	0.79	–	–	–	–	–	–
Unemployed							0.70	0.10	<0.001	2.01	1.64	2.46	–	–	–	–	–	–
Other							0.24	0.10	0.02	1.27	1.04	1.54	–	–	–	–	–	–
Only basic education after 22							0.04	0.18	0.84	1.04	0.73	1.47	–0.626	0.42	0.14	0.54	0.23	1.23
Part-time contract													0.44	0.17	0.01	1.55	1.12	2.14
Fixed contract													0.29	0.13	0.03	1.33	1.03	1.71

Source: The authors’ findings. Data used are from the Finnish Youth Barometer 2009, 2013, 2016 and 2019.

Notes: Models 1 and 2 contain all respondents with non-missing responses (n = 7,423), Model 3 has only respondents from 2009 and 2019 whose main occupation was employment and who had non-missing responses (n = 1,362). OR = Odds ratio. s.e. = Standard error. CI = Confidence interval. NUTS = Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics.¹ Removed from Model 3 due to separation.

In Model 2, additional covariates were introduced (Table 4). The male gender remained associated with lower employment insecurity (exp(OR) 0.66, 95% CI 0.60–0.73), but adding the covariates attenuated the association between age and employment insecurity, making it statistically insignificant (P < 0.05). Urban municipalities did not differ in employment insecurity from the more rural municipalities, but the geographical NUTS2 regions indicated an association. More specifically, respondents from Northern and Eastern Finland reported higher employment insecurity (exp(OR) 1.16, 95% CI 1.02–1.33) than respondents from the Helsinki-Uusimaa region. The respondents’ mothers’ educational levels were not associated with employment insecurity.

We observed significant yearly changes in employment insecurity. Compared to 2009, in 2013 and 2016, the respondents reported experiencing more employment insecurity. In 2019, employment insecurity was significantly lower. Living with children with or without a spouse was associated with lower insecurity compared to people living alone or in shared apartments (exp(OR) 0.71, 95% CI 0.58–0.86 and exp(OR) 0.54, 95% CI 0.31–0.94, respectively). Working as an employee or as an entrepreneur was associated with reduced insecurity, while being unemployed increased the odds of reporting employment insecurity. Having only basic education after 22 years of age was not associated with employment insecurity (P < 0.05).

Model 3 examined employees’ employment insecurity in 2009 and 2019 (Table 4). Most of the controlling variables (age, municipality type, region, mother’s education and housing) had similar associations as in Model 2. The male gender was also still associated with lower employment insecurity (exp(OR) 0.78, 95% CI 0.61–0.98). However, speaking a first language other than Finnish or Swedish had a stronger association with employment insecurity among the employed (exp(OR) 4.23, 95% CI 2.27–7.88) than in Models 1 and 2. Having only basic education after 22 years remained unassociated with employment insecurity among employees. Both having a part-time contract and a fixed-term contract were associated with significantly increased employment insecurity (exp(OR) 1.55, 95% CI 1.12–2.14 and exp(OR) 1.33, 95% CI 1.03–1.71, respectively).

Discussion

Younger age is shown to be associated with less subjective employment insecurity (Kiersztyn, 2017; Lübke & Erlinghagen, 2014). There is, however, little research on how perceptions of future work change during youth. Instead, studies usually include all age groups or concentrate only on the employed population (Klug et al., 2019; Peiró et al., 2012). Our results show that there are differences among young people and that older groups report less employment insecurity. However, age as such was associated not with employment insecurity but with a more stable life situation (particularly living with a spouse or children). This was further confirmed by the fact that those already in working life (employed or entrepreneurs) were likelier to be confident about their future employment. This result shows that general optimism and individualized faith in hard work which characterize young generations (Franceschelli & Keating, 2018; Ikonen, 2020), can exist side by side with worries about the future. Youth is a period when many aspects of life are open simultaneously (studying, considering whether to start a family, finding a spouse if one wishes to have one, deciding where to live). Worrying about future employment is one of the open questions that add to the potential feelings of uncertainty. Young people need support in maintaining faith in the future when things seem open and unsure.

Young people benefit differently from becoming employed. Speaking a language other than Finnish or Swedish as one’s first language (a proxy for a foreign background) was associated with higher employment insecurity, and the association was stronger rather than weaker among employees. This is likely to reflect to the existence of discrimination and racism in working life and possibly indicates that such experiences are more frequent in working life than during school or studies.

The results concerning educational level were contrary to our expectations, since having only basic education by the age of 22 was not associated with higher employment insecurity. The possible difficulties of getting employed in the high-skill labour market did not seem to play a role in these perceptions. In the data, the group with only basic education by the age of 22 was mostly employed or entrepreneurs, and the consideration about future employment might have been made against such personal experiences, indicating faith that work will continue to be available. Being unemployed presented the highest level of employment insecurity, which means that being outside the labour market (rather than lacking, e.g. a suitable education) is the key risk for subjective employment insecurity. An opposite association was found when we examined the relationship between gender and employment insecurity. Contrary to our hypothesis, young women were more insecure about their future in working life compared to young men, and this association remained intact after controlling for other variables.

This result seems to point to an ‘inverse’ epistemological fallacy, as women’s personal characteristics (women had higher educational levels in our data and in the general population) and structural support for combining work and family should support a more optimistic, not pessimistic outlook on working life. A possible explanation for women’s weaker subjective security may be the gender differences in the experience of individualization. Rather than believing in their own efforts, young women might feel that they are not doing enough (Ikonen, 2020), which in turn can prevent them from trusting their structurally more favourable position when they assess their job prospects.

We further analysed the relationship between non-standard work and employment insecurity (Model 3) among those who reported that their main activity was being employed, thus excluding working students, who may prefer part-time or fixed-term contracts. The analysis revealed a significant association between fixed-term contracts and employment insecurity, confirming previous results (Chung, 2019; Kiersztyn, 2017). Contrary to previous research and our hypothesis, part-time work was also associated with employment insecurity which indicates that part-time work is not entirely voluntary.

The analysis also shed more light on the gendered differences. Women remained more insecure after controlling for contract type. As non-standard contracts were concentrated on women, women’s higher insecurity was partly explained by this concentration in the employed group. Young women’s greater insecurity about their future employment is thus related to the structure of the Finnish labour market, in which non-standard contracts concentrate on women and highly educated public sector employees. Although public sector employment (particularly in care, social services and education) technically provides secure employment because it is easy to find work, and fixed-term contracts are often renewed (Pyöriä & Ojala, 2016), it does not seem to be enough to provide subjective security. Even if young women’s feelings of not doing enough played a part in their higher feelings of insecurity, the result is also likely to reflect young Finnish women’s awareness of how for them, working life offers less pay and more part-time and fixed-term contracts than it does for young men.

Our results partly confirm the association between the economic cycle and subjective employment insecurity, as we observed significant yearly changes in employment insecurity. The economic downturn after the GFC resulted in a high level of subjective employment insecurity in 2009. It continued to increase during the second downturn (2013). In 2016, a year of an economic upturn, young people reported slightly less insecurity compared to 2013 but still more than in 2009. In 2019, employment insecurity was significantly lower than in 2009, 2013 and 2016.

These slightly contradictory results can be interpreted in different ways. Young people react to economic fluctuations, as observed in earlier research (Lübke & Erlinghagen, 2014). The relatively high level of employment insecurity during the upturn of 2016 could be explained by the fact that the period after the GFC was considered a ‘lost decade’ in Finland. Despite the economic growth, GDP was expected to reach its pre-crisis level only in 2018 (Teivainen, 2018). Together with the high youth unemployment rate, the general pessimistic view of the Finnish economy might have affected young people’s evaluations in an economic upturn.

At the same time, our results allow to reflect the role of ALMPs and youth policy programmes (the Youth Guarantee 2013–2015). After three years of investments in youth activation, employment insecurity remained at a high level in 2016. Young people’s worries were relieved only during the economic upturn of 2019, which was, however, more modest than that of 2016. It could be that the heightened public anxiety about youth social exclusion, which accompanied the introduction of Youth Guarantee, overshadowed the potential for skills enhancement and new opportunities provided by Youth Guarantee, paradoxically increased young people’s worries about future employment. Some evidence of young people’s heightened worries can be found in the YB of 2018, when 60% of young people reported feelings of insecurity related to youth social exclusion (Myllyniemi & Kiilakoski, 2019, p. 74). Although these explanations are tentative, as the measure for investments in ALMPs (year) is the same as for the economic cycle, and other factors that could not be analysed here may have played a part, this is a finding that should be further explored.

Our study had certain limitations. Non-response has become more common in the YB (Table 1). This is not always a problem because there is evidence that non-response does not necessarily threaten the quality of survey estimates (Keeter et al., 2006). However, the quota sampling employed in the data collection may decrease the reliability of the estimates (Yeager et al., 2011) and bias the results in more marginal groups (Laaksonen, 2018, p. 55).

The self-reporting of the controlling variables could be a source of error because determining, for example, the status of the work contract or the main activity during the transition phases from school to post-compulsory and university studies may be difficult. We used a self-reported, single-item measure of employment insecurity, but single-item measures have proven suitable for similar broad constructs in related phenomena, such as perceived job satisfaction (Fisher et al., 2016). The question of employment insecurity in the YB was open without a fixed time span, whereas other studies usually use a question with a specific time span. However, there are no studies assessing the validity of different measures for employment insecurity, and different studies use varying measures. Comparing our results to other studies with different measures should bare this in mind. The strength of our study was its assessment of employment insecurity as a future-oriented concept in the total youth population which allowed us to foreground variations among young people.

Conclusion

Employment insecurity is a concept that captures the anticipation of future working life and implies expectations about income level, career mobility and unemployment. This article showed that although young people have faith in their future employment, insecurity is not evenly distributed. Both personal attributes and labour market characteristics are associated with insecurity which is concentrated among young women and foreign language speakers. We also found that although young people might not be able to grasp the consequences of broad labour market transformations, they are sensitive to economic crises.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Haikkola's work was supported by Academy of Finland's Academy Research Fellow grant (nro. 332674).

Notes

References

Ågren

(2021). Exploring vocational education students’ visions of a successful transition to working life from the perspective of societal belonging. Journal of Applied Youth Studies, 4(1), 67–81.

Alatalo

, Mähönen

, & Räisänen

(2017). Nuorten ja nuorten aikuisten työelämä ja sen ulkopuolisuus. TEM analyyseja 76/2017 [Young people in and outside the labour market]. Työ- ja elinkeinoministeriö. https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/handle/10024/79182

Allen

, & Hollingworth

(2013). ‘Sticky subjects’ or ‘cosmopolitan creatives’? Social class, place and urban young people’s aspirations for work in the knowledge economy. Urban Studies, 50(3), 499–517.

Bessant

, Farthing

, & Watts

(2017). The precarious generation. A political economy of young people. Taylor & Francis.

Choudhry

M. T.

, Marelli

, & Signorelli

(2012). Youth unemployment rate and impact of financial crises. International Journal of Manpower, 33(1), 76–95.

Chung

(2019). Dualization and subjective employment insecurity: Explaining the subjective employment insecurity divide between permanent and temporary workers across 23 European countries. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 40(3), 700–729.

Chung

, & Mau

(2014). Subjective insecurity and the role of institutions. Journal of European Social Policy, 24(4), 303–318.

Chung

, & van Oorschot

(2010). Employment insecurity of European individuals during the financial crisis: A multi-level approach: Vol. REC-WP 14/2010. University of Edinburgh, Publication and Dissemination, Centre (PUDISCwowe).

Chung

, & van Oorschot

(2011). Institutions versus market forces: Explaining the employment insecurity of European individuals during (the beginning of) the financial crisis. Journal of European Social Policy, 21(4), 287–301.

10.

De Cuyper

, Piccoli

, Fontinha

, & De Witte

(2019). Job insecurity, employability and satisfaction among temporary and permanent employees in post-crisis Europe. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 40(2), 173–192.

11.

Dixon

J. C.

, Fullerton

A. S.

, & Robertson

D. L.

(2013). Cross-national differences in workers’ perceived job, labour market, and employment insecurity in Europe: Empirical tests and theoretical extensions. European Sociological Review, 29(5), 1053–1067.

12.

Épiphane

, & Sulzer

(2008). Young people and work. High aspirations within different societal models. In Stellinger

& Winterbert

(Eds.), Young people facing the future. An international survey (pp. 57–81). Fondation pour l’innovation politique.

13.

Fisher

G. G.

, Matthews

R. A.

, & Gibbons

A. M.

(2016). Developing and investigating the use of single-item measures in organizational research. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 21(1), 3–23.

14.

Franceschelli

, & Keating

(2018). Imagining the future in the neoliberal era: Young people’s optimism and their faith in hard work. Young, 26(4_suppl), 1S–17S.

15.

Furlong

, & Cartmel

(2007). Young people and social change. New perspectives. Open University Press.

16.

Galland

(2008). Young people and society. Contrasting visions of the future. In Stellinger

& Winterbert

(Eds.), Young people facing the future. An international survey (pp. 27–56). Fondation pour l’innovation politique.

17.

Green

(2019). What is happening to middle skills workers? OECD social, employment and migration working papers No. 230. OECD. https://ideas.repec.org/p/oec/elsaab/230-en.html

18.

Green

(2011). Unpacking the misery multiplier: How employability modifies the impacts of unemployment and job insecurity on life satisfaction and mental health. Journal of Health Economics, 30(2), 265–276.

19.

Heggli

, Haukanes

, & Tjomsland

(2013). Fearing the future? Young people envisioning their working lives in the Czech Republic, Norway and Tunisia. Journal of Youth Studies, 16(7), 916–931.

20.

Hellevik

, & Hellevik

(2021). Hvorfor ser færre unge lyst på livet? Utviklingen for opplevd livskvalitet blant ungdom og yngre voksne i Norge [Why do fewer young people have a postive attitude on life? The development for perceived quality of life among young people and younger adults in Norway]. Nordisk Tidsskrift for Ungdomsforskning, 2(2), 104–128.

21.

Honkatukia

, & Lähde

(2020). Navigating towards sustainable working life – Young people imagining the technologized future of work. Journal of Youth Studies, 24(9), 1199–1214.

22.

Ikonen

H.-M.

(2020). Having a top-class mindset? Post-feminism and the co-construction of class and mindset among young Finnish women. Gender and Education, 32(7), 944–960.

23.

Kalleberg

A. L.

(2011). Good jobs, bad jobs. The rise of polarized and precarious employment systems in the United States, 1970s–2000s. Russell Sage Foundation.

24.

Karamessini

, Symeonaki

, Parsanoglou

, & Stamatopoulou

(2019). Mapping early job insecurity impacts of the crisis in Europe. In Hvinden

, Hyggen

, Schoyen

M. A.

, & Sirovátka

(Eds.), Youth unemployment and job insecurity in Europe. Problems, risk factors and policies (pp. 24–44). Edward Elgar Publishing.

25.

Keeter

, Kennedy

, Dimock

, Best

, & Craighill

(2006). Gauging the impact of growing nonresponse on estimates from a national RDD telephone survey. Public Opinion Quarterly, 70(5), 759–779.

26.

Kiersztyn

(2017). Non-standard employment and subjective insecurity: How can we capture job precarity using survey data? In Kalleberg

A. L.

& Vallas

S. P.

(Eds.), Precarious work (pp. 91–122). Emerald Publishing.

27.

Klug

, Bernhard-Oettel

, Mäkikangas

, Kinnunen

, & Sverke

(2019). Development of perceived job insecurity among young workers: A latent class growth analysis. International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health, 92(6), 901–918.

28.

Korpela

, & Jauhiainen

(2022). Rekisteritarkastelu hakuvelvoitteen yhteydestä opiskeluun ja sosiaaliturvan ja työllisyyttä edistävien palvelujen käyttöön [An analysis of the realtiosnhip between youth obligation to apply for education and service use and receipt of social benefits]. In Haikkola

, Uusikangas

, Korpela

, Jauhiainen

, & Hiilamo

(Eds.), Koulutukseen hakuvelvoite nuorten työttömyysturvan ehtona. Tarkoituksenmukaisuuden tarkastelua rekisteriaineistojen, TE-palvelujen, oppilaitosten ja nuorten näkökulmista [How does the youth obligation to apply for education work? Examining the obligation from the viewpoint of register data, public employment services, educational institutions and young, people] (pp. 19–44). Valtioneuvoston kanslia.

29.

Laaksonen

(2018). Sampling principles, missingness mechanisms, and design weighting. In Laaksonen

(Ed.), Survey methodology and missing data: Tools and techniques for practitioners (pp. 49–76). Springer International Publishing.

30.

Lähteenmaa

(2021). Nuorten työttömien orientaatiot aktivointitoimenpiteissä [The orientations of young people participating in youth activation measures]. Nuorisotutkimus, 39(1), 37–57.

31.

Lübke

, & Erlinghagen

(2014). Self-perceived job insecurity across Europe over time: Does changing context matter? Journal of European Social Policy, 24(4), 319–336.

32.

McDonald

, Pini

, Bailey

, & Price

(2011). Young people’s aspirations for education, work, family and leisure. Work, Employment and Society, 25(1), 68–84.

33.

Myllyniemi

(2016). Tilasto-osio [The basic results]. In Myllyniemi

(Ed.), Arjen jäljillä. Nuorisobarometri 2015 [Young people and everyday life. Youth Barometer 2015] (pp. 9–114). Valtion nuorisoneuvosto & Nuorisotutkimusseura & Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriö.

34.

Myllyniemi

(2017). Tilasto-osio [The basic results]. In Myllyniemi

(Ed.), Katse tulevaisuudessa. Nuorisobarometri 2016 [Gazing into the future. Youth Barometer 2016] (pp. 9–102). Valtion nuorisoneuvosto & Nuorisotutkimusseura & Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriö.

35.

Myllyniemi

, & Kiilakoski

(2019). Tilasto-osio [The basic results]. In Pekkarinen

& Myllyniemi

(Eds.), Vaikutusvaltaa Euroopan laidalla. Nuorisobarometri 2018 [Influence on the edge of Europe. Youth Barometer 2018] (pp. 9–112). Valtion nuorisoneuvosto & Nuorisotutkimusseura & Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriö.

36.

Nedelkoska

, & Quintini

(2018). Automation, skills use and training. OECD social, employment and migration working papers no. 202. OECD Publishing.

37.

Nikunen

, & Korvajärvi

(2020). Being positive, being hopeful, being happy: Young adults reflecting on their future in times of austerity. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 25(3). http//doi.org/10.1177/1367549420935901

38.

OECD. (2021). Youth unemployment rate (indicator). doi:10.1787/c3634df7-en

39.

OECD. (2022). Youth not in employment, education or training (NEET) (indicator). doi:10.1787/72d1033a-en

40.

Official Statistics of Finland. (n.d.). Educational structure of population. Statistics Finland. https://www.stat.fi/til/vkour/2019/vkour_2019_2020-11-05_tie_001_en.html

41.

Ojala

, Saari

, Jonker-Hoffrén

, & Pyöriä

(2021). Non-standard work in Finland. In Ilsoe

& Larsen

T. P.

(Eds.), Non-standard work in the Nordics. Troubled waters under the still surface (pp. 97–107). Nordic Council of Ministers.

42.

Peiró

J. M.

, Sora

, & Caballer

(2012). Job insecurity in the younger Spanish workforce: Causes and consequences. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 80(2), 444–453.

43.

Puig-Barrachina

, Vanroelen

, Vives

, Martínez

J. M.

, Muntaner

, Levecque

, Benach

, & Louckx

(2014). Measuring employment precariousness in the European working conditions survey: The social distribution in Europe. Work. A Journal of Prevention, Assessment & Rehabilitation, 49(1), 143–161.

44.

Pyöriä

, & Ojala

(2016). Precarious work and intrinsic job quality: Evidence from Finland, 1984–2013. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 27(3), 349–367.

45.

Scharff

(2016). The psychic life of neoliberalism: Mapping the contours of entrepreneurial subjectivity. Theory, Culture & Society, 33(6), 107–122.

46.

Sipilä

, Kestilä

, & Martikainen

(2011). Koulutuksen yhteys nuorten työttömyyteen: Mihin peruskoulututkinto riittää 2000-luvun alussa? [The relationship between educational level and unemployment among young people]. Yhteiskuntapolitiikka, 76(2), 121–134.

47.

Statistics Finland. (2021). Gender equality in working life. Statistics Finland. https://www.stat.fi/tup/tasaarvo/tyoelama/index_en.html

48.

Suni

, & Vihriälä

(2016). Finland and its northern peers in the Great Recession. The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy. https://www.etla.fi/wp-content/uploads/ETLA-Raportit-Reports-49.pdf

49.

Sutela

, Pärnänen

, & Keyriläinen

(2019). Digiajan työelämä. Työolotutkimuksen tuloksia 1977–2019 [Results from the working conditions survey 1977–2019]. Tilastokeskus. http://www.stat.fi/tup/julkaisut/tiedostot/julkaisuluettelo/ytym_1977-2018_2019_21473_net.pdf?_ga=2.180252455.202272827.1575965627-1809327973.1574686842

50.

Teivainen

(2018). Finland’s lost decade is over, rejoices economist. Helsinki Times. https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/15580-finland-s-lost-decade-is-over-rejoices-economist.html

51.

Tilasto- ja indikaattoripankki Sotkanet. (n.d.). Young people aged 17–24 outside of education, % of the age group (indicator 3219). Terveyden ja hyvinvoinnin laitos. https://sotkanet.fi/sotkanet/fi/kaavio?indicator=s_bPAgA=&region=s07MBAA=&year=sy5zti7X0zUEAA==&gender=t&t=line

52.

Tuusa

, Pitkänen

, Shemeikka

, Korkeamäki

, Harju

, Saares

, Pulliainen

, Kettunen

, & Piirainen

(2014). Yhdessä tekeminen tuottaa tuloksia. Nuorisotakuun tutkimuksellisen tuen loppuraportti. Työ ja elinkeinoministeriön julkaisuja 15/2014 [The final report of the evaluation of the youth guarantee]. Työ- ja elinkeinoministeriö. https://tem.fi/documents/1410877/2859687/Yhdess%C3%A4+tekeminen+tuottaa+tuloksia+14052014.pdf

53.

Yeager

D. S.

, Krosnick

J. A.

, Chang

, Javitz

H. S.

, Levendusky

M. S.

, Simpser

, & Wang

(2011). Comparing the accuracy of RDD telephone surveys and internet surveys conducted with probability and non-probability samples. Public Opinion Quarterly, 75(4), 709–747.

Young People and Subjective Employment Insecurity: Evidence from the Finnish Youth Barometer between 2009 and 2019

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Employment Insecurity

Previous Research on Young People’s Perceptions of Future Employment and the Finnish Context

Materials and Methods

Data

Measures

Subjective employment insecurity

Covariates

Control variables

Statistical Analysis

Results

Respondents’ Characteristics

Regression Models

Discussion

Conclusion

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

Notes

References