Young Employed and Their Siblings in Europe: Only a Social Class Matter?

This paper compares youth occupational status in several European countries by focusing on social class of origin and on number of siblings. The variance in young adults’ employment by household’s social origin and family size (regardless of co-residence in the parental household) could provide further insights on the cumulative advantage/disadvantage hypotheses stemming from the analyses of intergenerational reproduction of inequalities. We expect to find that young people coming from wealthier families benefit from easier access to education, more chances to develop soft skills and inherit social networks or business, and thus being employed. Conversely, families with fewer resources have less to invest on each of their sons and daughters to help them finding and holding a job. However, since the latter families tend to have more children, siblings in work may counterbalance, supporting young people’s entry and permanence into employment. If youngsters might have fewer resources transmitted directly from parents, they may have more passed indirectly from (employed) siblings. We test this hypothesis with SHARE data, controlling for proximity from parents, with a focus on the occupational status of siblings. We aim at testing if there is an effect between social class of origin and number of (employed) siblings.