A distaste for insecurity: job preferences of young people in the transition to adulthood
Abstract
Abstract Given the trend towards labour market flexibility in various European countries, this article examines whether the offered type of employment contract has an impact on young people’s ratings of the attractiveness of a job. It empirically assesses the notion that young people’s preference for secure employment increases as they transition into adulthood. We conducted a factorial survey among a representative sample of 1,025 people aged 18–35 years old in the Netherlands. Participants were asked to evaluate hypothetical job offers. Results show that, compared with a permanent contract, the offer of a temporary contract for 3 years has a small negative effect on young adults’ job ratings, whereas offers of an agency contract or an on-call contract have a large negative effect. In line with our predictions, this preference for job security is stronger for men and women who have left the parental home or who have entered parenthood. For men, we also find that their preference for job security is even stronger if they have entered a romantic relationship. These findings suggest that young adults regard insecure employment undesirable, but that, based on their overrepresentation in non-standard employment, their preferences are often not met.
Ingestion failed: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/srv/app/app/worker.py", line 85, in run_once process_job(db, job) File "/srv/app/app/worker.py", line 39, in process_job pdf_path, info = fetch_pdf_temp(candidate["url"]) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/srv/app/app/downloader.py", line 129, in fetch_pdf_temp raise ValueError(f"PDF source returned HTTP {response.status_code}.") ValueError: PDF source returned HTTP 403.
No local PDF is available.
GROBID Extracted text; discontinued.
This text is generated from TEI extraction for accessibility, search, and TTS. Formulas, tables, figures, page layout, and references may not perfectly match the original PDF.
No accessible text representation is available. The text extraction service has been discontinued for the time being. If you require this service, for accessibility or any other reason, please submit an issue/request on this page.
Metadata
Issues
No public issues have been filed for this DOI.
Submit an issue
Record history
| When | Event | Field | Old | New |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-18 19:37:53.011249+00:00 | identifier_assigned | DSEID | DSEID-001-4343657 |