Social backgroundand life-course risks as determinants of social assistancereceipt among young adults in Sweden, Norway and Finland
Timo M. Kauppinen, Anna Angelin, Thomas Lorentzen, Olof Bäckman, Tapio Salonen, Pasi Moisio, Espen Dahl
Introduction
Youth is a life stage that is often presented as a specifically risky phase when failures or setbacks may result in trajectories towards long-term marginalization (Sharland, 2006; Kieselbach, 2004). The development towards an unpredictable and more flexible labor market has contributed to a situation where young adults must cope with living in a "risk society"where they often lack stable employment and income (Cieslik & Pollock, 2002; Heggen,2000).Though most young adults manage to negotiate successful transitions in accordance to established norms on routes to adulthood, there is also a widening academic as well as public debate on youths who remain in a dependent state,lacking education, income and employment. This category has been referred to as "Status zer0 youth", "NEET"(Not in Employment, Education or Training) or young outsiders (Bynner & Parsons, 2002; Furlong, 2006, SOU 2003:92).
One of the major risks during young adulthood is experiencing poverty or precarious financial circumstances. The transition towards adulthood typically contains multiple transitions and several major life-course events simultaneously which results in increasing vulnerability to poverty (Moore, 2005). Poverty is most central in understanding how and if young people can manage functioning transitions into adulthood but despite this, youth poverty has attracted quite limited academic attention (France, 2008). Iacovou (2009) claims that youth poverty is an under-researched area that is lacking recognition even though it is a profound welfare issue. There is extensive research focusing on youth vulnerability but few studies on youth poverty itself (ibid.). This can be compared to for instance the extensive body of research focusing on child poverty (Aasve et al, 2006).
The risk of poverty during youth or young adulthood can be expected to depend on the prevailing kind of "transition regime" that impactsthe trajectories of young people (Vogel, 2002). The context of economical, institutional as well as cultural norms and patterns certainly affects and structures this life-phase (Walther, 2006). The Nordic countries have been considered to belong to a "universalistic transition regime" based on a comprehensive school system and social rights, such as social assistance, linked to citizenship status regardless of family situation (Walther, 2006).However, there is a pronounced and surprisingly high occurrence of youth poverty (IacovouAasve, 2007), even though the Nordic countries often are clustered as universal welfare regimes (Esping-Andersen, 1990; Mkandawire, 2005; Lister, 2009) characterized by low general poverty rates. Young adults also comprise one of the major categories of social assistance recipients in the Nordic countries. In Sweden, for example, as many as 40 per cent of all adult social assistance recipients were in the ages from 18 to 29 years old (Socialstyrelsen, 2011).
Precise measurements of poverty among young people through income data contain several pitfalls. In the process of transition to adulthood, incomes often fluctuate considerably and rapidly. Young people may for example gap-year travel and work abroad (Salonen, 2003). Young adults also often receive financial support from their parents (Latta, 2007; Julkunen, 2002; Angelin, 2009). Additionally, in the Nordic countries, low income during youth is not sufficient to predict future precarious income development as an extensive share of the youth cohorts are enrolled in tertiary education (HallerödWestberg, 2006). The consequence is that income data can be quite unreliable, especially cross-sectional income data (Mendola et al., 2009; Moore, 2005).
Given the pitfalls in measuring youth poverty with income data, social assistance receiptcan be used as an indicator of actual experiences of financial deprivation. The lives and trajectories of young social assistance recipients are differentiated and heterogeneous and so is the length and extent of their need for public financial support. What they do share though are experiences of poverty. As their applications for benefits have been approved after means-testing we can be quite convinced that receipt of social assistance actually works as an indicator of considerable financial difficulty.[1] This is even further relevant in relation to those who have remained in long-term receipt and experienced recurring spells with considerable permanence of poverty (Mendola et al., 2009).
In this article we aim to shed light on occurrence of poverty among young adults in the Nordic countries by analyzing longitudinal register-based data on social assistance receipt during young adulthood in Norway, Finland and Sweden.We look at the determinants of the receipt of social assistance, focusing on the effects of social background and life-course risks.Secondly, we assess, whether different explanations are needed for short- versus long-term receipt.The research questions are:
1)How do social background and life-course risk factors predict the receipt of social assistance?
2)Do the same factors explain both long-term and short-term receipt?
When answering these questions, we will look at differences between the three countries in the answers.
Theoretical framework: social background versus life-course risk factors as determinants of social assistance receipt
Social background
If we consider the determinants of social assistance receipt among young adults from a social stratification viewpoint, intergenerational reproduction of disadvantage comes to fore as a possibly important explanation (Roberts, 2009a). In accordance to this perspective, long-term receipt of social assistance can be predicted to occur more likely among young adults from less favorable socio-economic backgrounds. Even though transitions have become more individual they still occur in the context of social inequality (Roberts, 2009b). Opportunity structures and social risks are not equally distributed among the population, not even in the reputed decommodified and egalitarian Nordic welfare states. Intergenerational poverty is relevant in understanding youth poverty as it is often transmitted from childhood deprivation that continues when entering young adulthood (Moore, 2005).Previous Nordic research clearly indicates patterns of intergenerational transmission of social assistance receipt from parents to their adult children (Stenberg, 2000; MoisioKauppinen, 2009; Lorentzen & Nielsen, 2008, Salonen, 2002).
Disadvantaged young people often lack crucial resources to navigate transitions or exercise choice in managing their lives (Furlong, 2006). In understanding lacking resources it is central to stress that in addition to monetary capital youths’ navigations are also assisted by disposal of human, social and cultural capital that can be gained or enhanced from factors such as having educated parents (Bourdieu, 1986; Bynner & Parsons, 2002; Hyggen, 2006). Family and parental help have been found to be hugely important in Nordic youths' protection against deprivation, even as central as the nature and generosity of the welfare systems in the Nordic countries (Julkunen 2002, Latta 2007). As the degree that parents can support their children is unevenly distributed it obviously affects risks for reproduction of disadvantage. Young and unskilled individuals are particularly vulnerable on today’s labor markets (Taylor-Gooby, 2004), which can be considered as a major explanation to why youths from less favorable socio-economic conditions lacking education can be expected to be most likely to remain as long-term recipients of social assistance.
Life-course risk factors
Youth is recognized as a stage of 'becoming' where a move from being dependent on others to living as an autonomous and independent citizen takes place (France, 2008, Mizen,2004). Economic independence is an important indicator of the transition to adulthood (Smeeding & Philips, 2002). This autonomy is quite difficult to obtain for many youths in the Nordic countries as either continued financial support from parents or applying for social assistance is a reality for many.
There are several reasons why youths are economically vulnerable in the Nordic as well as other European countries. The process of entering the labor market during young adulthood is a key life stage where several, and costly, central transitions like establishing partnership, parenthood and an independent household often take place concurrently (Anxo et al 2010; MüllerGangl, 2003). These transitions have also become non-linear, protracted and increasingly reversible as stable employment occurs at a higher age (duBois-Reymond, 2003). Some scholars have used the term “new social risks” – as compared to the “old” social risks such as a lower social background – to refer to these increased individual risks associated with the labor market such asfinding stable employment and managing to fulfill the increased demands on skills and formal education. The term has also been related to the private sphere where destabilization of the family as a welfare provider has resulted from increase in dissolved marriages and single parenthood, and difficulties in meeting responsibility for care of children and elderly poses challenges in relation to growing female employment rates. Many welfare states, including the Nordic, also have a challenge in including increasing numbers of non-western immigrants who often encounter major difficulties in finding employment and obtaining self-sufficiency.
New social risks have been claimed to affect people more strongly at certain life stages, youth being one of them, and low-skilled young people have been suggested to be particularly vulnerable (Taylor-Gooby, 2004). The protracted and more winding road during the school-to-work transition in the Nordic countries increases risks of poverty and exclusion from social insurance and unemployment benefits (Lorentzen et al., forthcoming). This also includes risks related to for instance illness or childbearing during periods of education (therefore non-included in general social insurances), or brief financial crises between spells of temporary work or travelling that is resolved through social assistance.
Poverty often peaks in the Nordic countries around the age of 20.Previous comparative research reveals that the main explanatory factor for the high poverty in this age group in the Nordic countries is the pattern of very early home-leaving (Mendola et al., 2009; Aassve et al. 2006). Nordic young people frequently leave their parental home before they have finished their education or are established on the labor market, and therefore they lack the sufficient income (Vogel, 2002). The major risk of poverty in early adulthoodis thus living away from the parental home (Iacovou, 2009).
The social-democratic redistributive welfare states have been perceived as superior in both meeting old social risks (through policies for general retirement rights, sickness and unemployment compensation) as well as implementing bulwarks to combat new social risks like providing public child-care and promotion of labor market inclusion (Timonen, 2004). Despite this, a considerable amount of Nordic youths are unemployed and in need of social assistance. From a theoretical perspective that emphasizes the importance of new social risks, one would predict that the short-term social assistance can predominantly be understood as a temporary relief for risk exposure in the prolonged transition between adolescence and adulthood when young adults are in the process of entering an increasingly flexible, unstable and demanding labor market (AndrénGustafsson, 2004; Taylor-Gooby, 2004).
Different explanations for short- and long-term receipt?
It is necessary to empirically distinguish those who encounter temporal and limited spells and those who remain in a long term marginalized position. The relevance of social background and life-course risk factors as determinants of social assistance receipt might differ between short- and long-term recipients.
The risk for short-term receipt might be less determined by social background than the risk for long-term receipt, as short-term receipt might result mainly from a generally unstable life phase. Therefore, we ask, does short-term social assistance receipt in these Nordic countries primarily represent a dynamic and "rocky" period of life that is common to substantial share of young adults and not strongly associated with the social background? On the other hand, is a less favorable social background mostly related to more grave and permanent marginalization, with a continued need and receipt of long-term social assistance?Or is social background the ultimate determinant of all social assistance receipt, with life-course risk factors only mediating the effects of social background?A Swedish study on long term exclusion among the “young outsiders” in the 1990s (SOU 2003:92) concluded that immigrant background, low parental income and education, and high benefit receipt characterized the group that experienced lasting difficulties.
Earlier research on the determinants of social assistance receipt among young adults
In Rowntree's (1901) classical studies of poverty over the life cycle, youth was classified one of the less vulnerable stages. Today the situation is quite the opposite as young people are one of the categories in the Nordic countries that are most likely to be poor and receive social assistance (Social Rapport, 2010). As the Nordic welfare regimes require previous work experience as a condition for full inclusion in social insurances, many young people are not yet entitled to the so called "universal" benefits (Lorentzen et al, forthcoming). The loose connection to the labour market can thus be understood as a central risk for poverty and as a consequence of this, increased social assistance uptake among youth. However,the risk for becominga long-term social assistance recipient is not evenly distributed among youth, as less favourable socioeconomic or non-Nordic ethnic background is a prominent determinant of this (Hammer, 2001; Angelin, 2009).
There are not many studies simultaneously analyzing the risk of becoming a social assistance recipient and the duration of the receipt. These questions have often been analyzed separately, and studies on the duration have been more common.Andrén and Gustafsson (2004) analyzed – separately – both the entry and duration in Sweden, but they did not focus on young adults. However, they found that young adults (18-26 years old) were the age group particularly prone to become recipients, especially during times of high unemployment. Younger age also predicted longer-term receipt. Andrén and Gustafsson (ibid.) saw social assistance as having a function in Sweden missing in many other European countries, namely helping young people to bridge the period from being supported by their parents to becoming wage earners.
Regarding findings concerning the risk of receipt of SA, Hyggen (2006) found that growing up in other type of family than an intact nuclear family, father’s low educational level, parental social assistance receipt and school dropout predicted the risk of receiving social assistance when 18-28 years old in Norway. He did not analyze the duration of the receipt, however. Neither did Lorentzen et al. (2011) in their study on determinants of first-time social assistance receipt of young adults (aged 18-29 years) in Norway, but unlike the studies by Andrén and Gustafsson (2004) and Hyggen (2006), they used explanatory variables measured during the young adulthood in addition to the family-background variables.They found that several “critical” life events increased the likelihood of becoming a social assistance recipient: marital breakdown, becoming a single provider, establishing a family, leaving school and leaving the parental home all increased this likelihood. Also parental education and income (measured when the cases were 16 and 18 years old, respectively) had effects that were independent from the effects of the life events, with lower parental education and income increasing the probability of becoming a social assistance recipient.Also non-Western immigrants had significantly higher risk of being social assistance recipients. Because both the life events and the socio-economic background had independent effects on social assistance receipt, Lorentzen et al. (2011) concluded that these are supplementary instead of alternative explanations.
There is a large amount of research on the duration of social assistance receipt or on the exit from social assistance. Bäckman and Bergmark (2011, p. 488) summarize the commonly found predictors of low exit rates to include “such factors as a weak labour market, male sex, high age, being a single adult, ethnic minority status, low educational achievement, substance abuse, low employability, and poor physical and mental health.”
A number of Nordic studies have looked at the relationship between early receipt of social assistance and later receipt. Angelin’s (2009) analyses of Swedish youths during the welfare crisis of the 1990s revealed that those who became long-term unemployed or received social assistance at an early age (age 19-21) had a 6-7 times higher risk to be in that situation when they were older (27-29 years) compared to those who did not have these problems at the early age. This shows that there is a connection between early marginalisation and later marginalisation. In addition to early debuts as SA recipients the group with more permanent problems was characterized by higher prevalenceof lower socio-economic status of the family of origin and other ethnic background than Swedish. Hammer’s (2009) Norwegian analyses of the life trajectories of young SA recipients also indicated that they often came from families with low income and education. The majority of the group continued to receive it several times during the transition to adulthood but it was often short periods but in addition to this, as many as 20-25 per cent lived by various public support in adulthood.Bäckman and Bergmark (2011) found a negative duration dependency in SA receipt in Sweden in the 2000s, meaning that SA receipt in itself predicts later receipt.