June 20 – 21, 2019
Sonja Scheuring and Sophia Fauser took part in the 3rd Joint Graduate Conference at the University of Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain. This conference brings together PhD students from Germany (BAGSS), the Netherlands (Tilburg University), Italy (University of Trento) and Spain (DemoSoc, University of Pompeu Fabra) and offers excellent opportunities for international scientific exchange. Sonja Scheuring and Sophia Fauser were also able to present and discuss their work on well-being and the employment career for the SECCOPA project with their peers as well as senior researchers.
Sonja Scheuring presented her work on the adaption of unemployment theories to the fixed-term employment framework within the session on “health and well-being”. She utilizes the often-used Latent Deprivation Model by Marie Jahoda and goes beyond literature by discussing several mechanisms and comparing fixed-term employees to unemployed individuals as well to permanent employees. Testing the mechanisms with data from the 6th round of the European Social Survey, she finds evidence for the mediating role of the manifest as well as the latent function across several countries. However, as not all functions can be proven to function as mechanism, the theory needs to be furtherly modified. On the
country-level there is a great variation between the well-being effects, which can be partly explained for the comparison of temporary employees compared to unemployed individuals by different levels of social cohesion. This is innovative, as so far there are only studies on the moderating role of economic country characteristics like EPL, GDP or ALMP. Thanks to the great feedback of the supervisors, students and especially to the discussant (Aïda Solé Auró), the paper could be furtherly improved.
In her presentation, Sophia Fauser focused on the effect of temporary employment on cumulative wages. This work uses SOEP data to determine distinct career trajectories by clustering 10 year career sequences. By relating these career trajectories to cumulative wages, the wage gap between permanent and temporary employment can be investigated holistically and from a life course perspective. Specifically, in her paper Sophia Fauser compares “stepping stone” career trajectories which are characterized by experiences of temporary employment at labor market entry with subsequent transitions to permanent employment to „standard“ career trajectories containing mainly periods of permanent employment. Her findings show that individuals on the stepping stone career trajectory suffer no long-term cumulative wage disadvantages compared to people on the standard career trajectory. However, it takes some time for individuals on the stepping stone career trajectories to overcome initial wage penalties. This finding reveals that individuals, who start their career in temporary employment and then transition to permanent employment, enjoy higher subsequent wage growth and are compensated for their initial wage penalties in their later career. The quality of the paper will benefit greatly from the insightful comments of the discussant Moris Triventi (University of Trento) as well as other members from the audience.