Economic precariousness and living in the parental home in the UK

Today’s young adults are facing increased economic uncertainty as a result of unemployment, the continued growth of low-paid, insecure and often part-time employment, accelerated by the recent economic downturn. Recent media attention has focused on the trend for increased co-residence of adult children with their parent(s). It is generally assumed that this trend relates directly to the increased economic uncertainty of young adults, combined with the challenges of affordability in the housing market. This research is motivated by the need to identify which groups are most at risk of economic uncertainty and to investigate the consequences for young adults’ abilities to make successful transitions to adulthood. The paper contributes to the literature on both youth employment and housing transitions and the intersection of both. The aim of the paper is three fold: 1) To explore how different aspects of precariousness (labour market insecurity, employment insecurity, and income insecurity) can be operationalised using quantitative data; 2) To use these indicators to provide estimates of precarity amongst young men and women aged 18-34; 3) To examine how these indicators are related to the likelihood of living in the parental home. We use data from the first wave of the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) which was conducted in 2009/10, at the height of the economic downturn. By disaggregating analyses by gender and age we get beneath aggregate summary statistics and provide new insights into how young people’s experience of employment changes across the transition from older teenager, to those in their twenties and for those in their early thirties. The survey data suggest considerable income inequalities between young adults. Not surprisingly, the unemployed and economically inactive are concentrated in the lowest income quartiles. Among employed young adults, income levels differ significantly according to the hours worked, and occupational status. Our analyses show that young people are over-represented in routine and semi-routine jobs, most of these jobs tend to be low-paid and are in the bottom income quartile. Whilst the proportion in routine and semi-routine jobs decreases with age as young people gain the necessary skills and experience to climb the occupational ladder, a sizeable proportion – about one in five men and women in their early thirties remain in a routine or semi-routine job.A significant minority of young adults are self-employed. Among this group, we find a bi-modal income distribution, suggesting that for some, self-employment is an entrepreneurial success story. However, over one half of the self-employed in their late twenties and early thirties are in the lowest quartile suggesting that for others, self-employment is a new form of precarity. This research also quantifies the extent to which different indicators of precarity are related. We find that young adults often face multiple dimensions of economic precarity. For example, male part-time workers tend to have lower personal incomes, and part-time work is associated with being on a temporary contract and being in semi-routine or routine jobs. Almost all the indicators of precariousness were found to be associated with a higher likelihood of living in the parental home, suggesting that these young adults face constraints on their ability to make the transition to residential independence. Some differences are seen according to age. For men and women aged under 25, both unemployment, being temporary or part-time employed, or being in a (semi)routine job are associated with a higher likelihood of remaining in the parental home. By their late twenties only a small proportion of women, but a higher proportion of men remain living with their parents. At these ages, it is unemployed and economically inactive and men in (semi) routine jobs, and men with lower levels of personal income who are significantly more likely to remain living with their parent(s). This research has implications for various actors including national and local government, housing agencies and employee groups as well as the self-employed. Young adults are concentrated in parts of the economy dominated by zero and short-hours contracts and governments should regulate these types of contracts. In addition, uncertainties associated with self-employment need to be recognised since they may have implications for making stable housing and family transitions. New policies need to consider the groups struggling most with housing costs; young single people, especially those without children, who are renting single bedroom properties, particularly in London. Furthermore, policies need to be developed to support pay and skills progression among young adults.<br/

Measuring economic precarity among UK youth during the recession

What are the key aspects of economic precariousness and which are most relevant to analysing young people’s lives? In this study we use data from the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) to identify the proportion of men and women aged 18-34 who might be considered to be in an economically precarious situation and investigate how the dimensions of precariousness are interrelated. This paper summarises findings from the CPC Working Paper 55

Educational aspirations among UK young teenagers: exploring the role of gender, class and ethnicity

This paper presents an overview of teenagers’ aspirations for higher levels of education during the recent economic recession. We analyse the responses of 4899 young people aged 10 to 15, who participated in the UK Household Longitudinal Study in 2009-10. The timing of the survey is especially significant given the political emphasis on raising aspirations as a means to stimulate the economy. We consider the impact of gender, parental occupational class, parental educational background, family structure and parental attitudes towards education upon teenagers’ educational aspirations, and use multiple regression analyses to consider whether their effects are consistent across ethnic groups. Until now, only limited nationally representative data on young people’s aspirations have been available, especially in respect of ethnic differences. This research aims to fill that gap. It was undertaken as part of a wider study into the aspirations for living and learning among young people in the UK

Anomaly Detection and Removal Using Non-Stationary Gaussian Processes

This paper proposes a novel Gaussian process approach to fault removal in time-series data. Fault removal does not delete the faulty signal data but, instead, massages the fault from the data. We assume that only one fault occurs at any one time and model the signal by two separate non-parametric Gaussian process models for both the physical phenomenon and the fault. In order to facilitate fault removal we introduce the Markov Region Link kernel for handling non-stationary Gaussian processes. This kernel is piece-wise stationary but guarantees that functions generated by it and their derivatives (when required) are everywhere continuous. We apply this kernel to the removal of drift and bias errors in faulty sensor data and also to the recovery of EOG artifact corrupted EEG signals.Comment: 9 pages, 14 figure

Genomic approaches to assessing ecosystem health

Shellfish are an important component of our ecosystems. As sessile filter feeders, shellfish offer a valuable resource for revealing how the nearshore can be negatively influenced by anthropogenic activity and natural processes. Research in our lab focuses on using transcriptomic approaches to interrogate physiological responses, which in turn provides important insight into environmental conditions. Several projects will be presented including lab-based trials as well as efforts to characterize natural oyster populations in Puget Sound. More recently we have developed global epigenetic and proteomic approaches that could provide new insight into contaminant exposure and physiological impact. The potential for epigenetic approaches to reveal xenobiotic exposure will be discussed in a broader taxonomic framework as we are just beginning to understand the landscape and function of epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation in shellfish. New approaches and application of shotgun proteomics will also be discussed. Currently these approaches are not realistic solutions for routine monitoring of nearshore water quality, but do offer an un-biased means to develop stressor specific, simple assays for general use