Labour market prospects of young adults in Europe: differential effects of social origin during the Great Recession

ABSTRACT Research on the direct effect of social origin (DESO) focuses on how background influences later labour market outcomes after accounting for education. Growing up in a household of low social origin might decrease the chances of certain future outcomes; however, the extent to which this matters is contingent on the economic cycle. Using the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) and the European Social Survey (ESS) between 2002 and 2014, we analyse whether the gap in the DESO in terms of employment and earnings widened following the Great Recession for young adults (25-34) in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom. Our results suggest that young adults of high social origin faced more disadvantages in terms of employment than young adults of low social origin in France, Spain and the United Kingdom. On the other hand, analyses show that young adults of low social origin experienced more disadvantages in terms of earnings than their counterparts of high social origin in Spain.