Predicting the stability of early employment with its timing and childhood social and health-related predictors: a mixture Markov model approach
Authors: Helske Satu , Keski-Säntti Markus , Kivelä Juha , Juutinen Aapo , Kääriälä Antti , Gissler Mika , Merikukka Marko , Lallukka Tea 
Published: March 2021

Background and objectives: To extend work careers, it is important to focus on all working-aged people, including young adults. However, there is little knowledge about the stability of early careers and its life course social and health-related determinants. The aim of this study is to identify what kind of typical patterns of work participation and transitions between different statuses can be identified among young adults after their first entry into the labour market, and to examine whether the timing of entry together with parental and own socioeconomic position and health predict early work participation patterns.Methods: We used the Finnish Birth Cohort 1987 including data from several registers from all 59,476 children born in 1987 as well as their parents, followed until the end of 2015. We created sequences of monthly work participation statuses starting from the calendar month when a cohort member had their first at least six-month long spell in employment or entrepreneurship. Work participation statuses (8 categories) were collected for 60 months or until the end of the follow-up. We included altogether 51,871 individuals with an entry into paid employment, who could be followed for at least 12 subsequent months. Parental social and health-related covariates were included from national registers. We used first sequence analysis and cluster analysis to identify latent groups ofindividuals with similar work participation patterns. Next, we estimated a mixture Markov model that allows for identification of latent classes of labour market attachment, estimation of labour market transitions within classes, and prediction of class membership using childhood social and healthrelated determinants.Results: We observed that entry into the labour market as measured by six months in continuous employment was not a permanent entry for many, not only due to unemployment and health-related exits but also due to studies and parental leave. During the first five years, we observed a fairly linear relationship between the age at entry and early work participation pattern: individuals entering the labour market at a later age were more likely to be in continuous employment thereafter (all else equal). Regarding both own and parental social- and health-related childhood factors, latent classes show clear patterns of accumulated advantage and disadvantage: more advantaged background predicted exits due to studies or – when following a late entry – stable employment, while disadvantaged background factors predicted more unstable work and long-term exits from the labour market.Conclusions: There are varied work participation patterns and transitions between employment statuses among young employees. More in-depth understanding of these patterns and their determinants is important to plan targeted interventions and to promote more stable work participation among young adults.