Labor trajectories and transition to adulthood in Latin America: the risk of being young and a newcomer in the labor market

Many youth in Latin America lack clear occupational opportunities. This uncertainty in achievement a regular job may affect transitions to adulthood in terms of social roles related with age and stage of life course (involving prolonged education, frequent job changes, postponement of events, family dependence, etc.). The purpose of this paper is to ask weather increasing labor insecurity in local labor markets of Latin America have produced a fundamental shift in transitions to adulthood. The aim is to examine the relationship between job insecurity and transition to adulthood in Mexican women. We use data from a longitudinal study to examine how uncertainty in labor trajectories of young workers affects transitions of the life course. The applied method is Kaplan-Meier survival analysis for four events: First job (1), first protected job (2), first perceptions of insecurity (3) and transition to second job (4). Results suggest that youth with precarious labor trajectories handles a great heterogeneity of transitions to adulthood, supporting the view that labor insecurity heightens the individualization of life course.