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Feeling precarious affects young people’s mental health

Lara Maestripieri, Matilde Cittadini, Adriana Offredi and Roger Soler i Martí, IGOP/Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; Míriam Acebillo-Baqué, INGENIO (CSIC-Universitat Politècnica de València); Karen van Hedel, Utrecht University; Alba Lanau, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Precariousness is a much more complex concept than we initially thought: it includes meanings that go beyond working conditions and that are more related to the incapacity to secure a decent standard of living. The article shows how the perceived feeling of being in a precarious situation, more than having a non-permanent job, impacts young people’s mental health. Our results also demonstrate that labour precariousness and economic insecurity are distributed unequally across social groups, but feeling precarious is a situation that is diffused among all young people in Spain.
Key points
  • 1
       Labour precariousness is a phenomenon that is not equally distributed across young people, whereas feeling precarious affects all, independently from their gender, age, or migrant background.
  • 2
       31% of our interviewees are at risk of depression/anxiety. Feeling precarious, and not a precarious job in itself, is crucial as an explaining factor.
  • 3
       Feeling precarious goes beyond having a low-quality job; its meaning for our respondents also includes the incapacity to satisfy basic needs or access a decent standard of living.
  • 4
       40.6% of our sample stated that they suffer from at least one mental or physical health issue due to economic insecurity. Living alone is associated with greater economic insecurity.
  • 5
       The economic security of households has been challenged in the post-pandemic era, especially due to the inflation crisis and rising energy costs. About 65% of those who feel extremely precarious, state that these have been factors of economic insecurity for their household.
242020

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