The Experiences of Precarious Work amongst UK University Graduates. What are its Impacts and why do Graduates take it up

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Sociology - Work, Profession, Education, Organisation, grade: 70+, , language: English, abstract: 'Precarious employment' constitutes work that is characterised by multiple sources of insecurities and uncertainties, which is spreading across the industrialised world, particularly since the 2008-9 recession. Despite heavy investment in their education, today it is not uncommon for University graduates to take on precarious and often lower-skilled employment. Research on graduates in precarious work has been scarce and mostly comprised of quantitative studies, such as graduate surveys. This study therefore contributes to an under-researched area of graduate experiences, focusing on graduates' reasons for taking up precarious work, the nature of such work and its impacts on working and private lives. Qualitative methods were used and 13 interviews were conducted with UK university graduates, who obtained their degree after the 2008-9 recession and had experienced precarious work. The findings revealed various reasons for graduates' engagement in precarious work, but centrally it did not stem from individual choices, as suggested by a recent European Commission report (2011), but rather presented the only employment participants could find or afford to take up. This also intersected with social class, as those from traditional working class backgrounds found it most difficult to find non-precarious employment, whereas gender, race and the reputation of graduates' Universities did not show any significant impact. The nature of graduates' work was found to be highly precarious, with multiple implications for working and private lives. In contrast to previous findings at the work place, UK graduates were not only predominately concerned with being overqualified, but equally so with precarious circumstances. Strikingly, positive impacts of precarious work and strategies adapted to cope with these circumstances also emerged, which present two previously almost unexplored phenomena. Lastly, findings not only re-affirmed that precarious work impacts on other spheres of life, but also highlighted the areas of private life that were most affected. This study provides much needed empirical evidence on the experiences of UK graduates in precarious work and the reasons for taking it up, and should thus be of interest for policy reforms and for future research.