Working during college, a balancing act?

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Master’s Thesis 12-08-2019

Working during college, a balancing act?

Student: Kees Stants (10789367) Lecturer: Dennis Arnold

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Chapter 1: Introduction

Recent research from the CBS (the Dutch central bureau of statistics) has shown that the share of people employed in flexible labor in the Netherlands has roughly doubled since 1995 (CBS, 2018b). One group that is disproportionally employed in these kinds of contracts are young adults aged 18-35 (CBS, 2018b; Young and United, 2017; CBS, 2015). Data from the CBS shows that more than half of the students between 15 and 25 are currently employed and of those, around 8 out of 10 are employed in types of flexible labor arrangements like part-time work, 0-hour contracts or via temp-agencies (CBS, 2019).

The number of students employed part-time has increased with 18,7 % to 944,000 since the first quarter of 2014 (CBS, 2019). This coincides with a reform in the Dutch student financing system. Students that enrolled in tertiary education before the school year 2015-2016 used to get a monthly basic grant from the Dutch government of 286 euros a month if they lived on their own, or 102 euros a month if they were living with their parents or caretakers (LSVB, 2019). Parents were expected to supplement this allowance, but if they did not make enough money students could get a

supplementary grant of 266 or 245 euros depending on whether they lived with their parents (Ibid.). These grants were loans but are turned into a “gift” once a student graduated within ten years of starting tertiary education. On top of this students could also get students loans of at most 731 euros a month from the government to cover tuition costs and other expenses, however if they got the supplementary grant their maximum loans would be balanced with the supplementary grants (VSSD, 2019).

In the new student financing system students can take out loans with the Dutch government of at most 1057 euros a month (DUO, 2019). Students whose parents do not make enough money are eligible for a supplementary grant of up to 396 euros (Ibid.). However, these students can borrow 396

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euros less than the other students therefore making it impossible for them to receive more than 1057 euros a month. Compared to the old system a quick calculation tells us that students now have access roughly the same amount money that they previously had. The 1057 euros students have access to is just above the minimum to supply in basic needs and under the “not much but sufficient boundary” (SCP, 2018). This second boundary accounts for the costs of social participation like birthday gifts etc. This means that students could be limited in social participation due to a lack of income when their only sources of income are student finance and loans.

These averages do not account for the fact that students generally live in cities, where living space is at a premium. Specifically Amsterdam has become notorious for the short supply of student housing, leading to high housing expenses. On average students in Amsterdam spend 571 euros on rent every month (Volkskrant, 2018). Adjusting the minimum income provided by the SCP for these higher rents in comparison with the national average tells us that students would need 1167 euros every month. Assuming all students have access to the healthcare supplement provided by the government, students living in Amsterdam would have access to 1156 euros every month, still not enough to foresee in their basic needs and far short of the 1263 euros needed to meet the “not much but sufficient” boundary (SCP, 2018). This analysis does not account for rent supplements provided by the government. Rent supplements are provided to people renting living spaces with at least a kitchen, lockable door, and a toilet (Belastingdienst, 2019). However, students are likely to rent a single room in a larger apartment or live in dorms and thus share a kitchen, toilet, and/or a lockable door in which case supplements don’t apply or are lower in (Hull et al., 2018).

While this lack of income under students could be seen as problematic in itself, students are also under pressure in the new system as loans take up a much larger part of the student finance system. This forces students to take on debt which they will need to pay off over the next 35 years of their lives. Looking back at the 18,7% increase in employment in the last 4 years amongst students aged 15-25, it seems a genuine possibility that this increasing share is due to the necessity of working to provide in basic needs for students. Especially considering that these needs have become 7% more expensive since 2014 (SCP, 2018). 22% of students report having trouble to get by on their current income according to research by the ISO (Interstedelijk Studenten Overleg). Another 73% of students report increased stress and/or psychological complains due to the new system of student financing (ISO, 2019). Students also report being afraid of taking out loans and most students agree that the new system forces students to work too much (Ibid.). Additionally, research by the ISO has shown that 25% of Dutch students are suffering from burn-out complaints and another 14% have severe anxiety and/or depressive complaints (ISO, 2017). These complaints are often attributed to an increasing pressure amongst students to succeed in university (Ibid.). However the rising costs of

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studying in the Netherlands also plays a part in the increase in stress amongst students. This cost increase could force students to take on side jobs, more debt or both to pay for higher education, especially when they live on their own in cities far away from their parents. It is therefore necessary to take a look at the impacts of student labor on the livelihoods of students in Amsterdam.

One of the areas that students often work in is the horeca sector (hotels, restaurants, and café’s). Almost half of all employees in this sector are students under 25 (CBS, 2018). This sector is also very important to Amsterdam due to its large tourism industry. The tourism industry accounts for 65 500 jobs, making up 11% of the total job supply. The horeca sector in general accounts for 177 670 people employed in Amsterdam, including those working less than 12 hours a week (Gemeente Amsterdam, 2017; Gemeente Amsterdam, 2018). While the horeca industry is a large employer, especially amongst those working part-time in addition to studying, it is also notorious for its bad working conditions, benefits, and bad pay (Gaag van der, 2018; FNV horeca, 2018). This exacerbates the financial difficulties students in Amsterdam already face because of high rents and the changes in the student welfare system (Young and united, 2017).

Because of the aforementioned increasing rates of part-time employment amongst students and the role of the horeca as an employer, the changes in the Dutch student welfare system and the

flexibilization of the Dutch labor market this research will focus on the impacts of labor in horeca on student livelihoods. This research is guided by the following main question:

• How does labor in the horeca industry affect precarity among university students in Amsterdam?

To answer this question the following sub questions have been established:

• What are the working conditions amongst students in the Amsterdam horeca industry like? • How is the precarization of student labor in the horeca sector affected by labor agency? • How does working in the horeca impact precarity amongst students?

These questions will help analyze precarity, labor agency and the flexibilization of labor in the Dutch horeca context. Furthermore precariousness amongst students will be explored as research into precarity is often limited to workers. However a lot of people that experience precarity are not workers at all. This can lead to them experiencing precarity differently in comparison with people for whom labor is the primary day to day activity. This research will try to add to that discussion. Other academic concepts that will be treated in this thesis are the flexibilization of labor and labor agency.

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To answer these questions and involve this paper with the discussions surrounding precarity, flexibilization and labor agency, it will be necessary to have an theoretical framework to analyze student labor. This framework must analyze what labor market flexibilization is and how this process has developed over the years, resulting increasing prevalence of non-standard labor and precarity amongst student.

Chapter 2: Theoretical framework

Fordism

Fordism was an economic system prevalent during the postwar period in the industrialized world (Harvey, 1989). In this system the worker would be provided a good wage in order to allow him to profit from the mass production possible in this era through his labor whilst simultaneously establishing a market for these products (Ibid.). Summarized, Fordism was a system that fed mass production with mass consumption to establish the demand for mass produced goods (Harvey 1989). In combination with social security provided by the state, this economic system provided a new deal between labor and capital (Harvey, 1989; Neilson & Rossiter, 2008). This system started to break down in the late 1960’s because of globalization and the 2nd_{unbundling (Harvey, 1989; Baldwin,} 2011).

This breakdown gave rise to a new system: flexible accumulation, also known as Post-Fordism. In this system the workers of the Fordist system are divided into two different kinds of employees. The permanent employees with full-time jobs and benefits and the employees working seasonal or temporary jobs with inconsistent hours and lower benefits (Neilson & Rossiter, 2008; Harvey 1989). These new temporary workers are then the first ones the concept of precariousness starts

(re)applying to.

Precariousness, the precariat & labor market flexibilization

Precariousness is a concept developed in the 1980’s by French social scientists applying to seasonal workers (Standing, 2011). It gained traction in the early 2000’s when it was used in several

demonstrations and social struggles in Europe (Neilson & Rossiter, 2008; Standing, 2011). Nowadays precariousness focusses on the impacts of the change from traditional Fordist employment in

Western society in the postwar period to newer, more flexible forms of labor (Standing, 2011; Neilson & Rossiter, 2008; Harvey, 1989). Critics argue that precariousness only exists when compared to Fordism and the emergence of the welfare state and is therefore a concept focused on traditional labor in the global north (Neilson & Rossiter, 2008). The standard employment relationship is thus an

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anomaly while precariousness has historically been the standard amongst a majority of the population and should therefore be seen as the default.

This decade also saw the conception of a suggested new social class called the precariat (Standing, 2011). This social class is defined through experiencing precarity and non-standard labor. Some issues with this concept should already be clear to the reader as the previous argument against

precariousness also hold true against the precariat. Furthermore the classic proletariat also

experienced non-standard labor relationships and precarity. This should be self-evident from the high unemployment rate, prevalence of child and family labor and the labor strikes in this era. The

necessity of a new social class that is earmarked by precarity is thus unclear as the classic proletariat and lumpenproletariat already seem fit for the job.

Furthermore whom is considered to be precarious and therefore who is considered to be a member of the precariat can differ based on someone’s perspective on livelihoods and what is necessary to have a good live. A Ghanaian cocoa farmer that has to utilize the labor of his children to scrape by a livelihood from his farm will most likely not consider himself in the same social class as a Dutch student that has a side-job bartending even though the farmer most likely has several informal and precarious side-jobs as well (Pegler et al., 2011). This effectively means that there is no social solidarity on a global or transnational level in the precariat and that it would simply be ridiculous to expect this to develop due to the extremely large differences in interest of individual members in the precariat such as those between Dutch students and Ghanaian cocoa farmers (Neilson & Rossiter, 2008; Breman, 2013; Munck, 2013). While this is an extreme example the same will hold for the average Dutch flexibly employed and Students. Student can have very different interests and define precariousness and insecurity differently compared to those who are not studying. For these reasons this research will not use the idea of the precariat as a class. Instead precariousness itself will be the concept used to analyze student labor.

Precariousness consists of several factors, the first being unstable wages and unstable living, a consequence of the insecurity generated through labor market flexibilization (Standing, 2011; Standing, 2017; Olsthoorn, 2013). Labor market flexibilization has been rampant in the Dutch labor market over the last decade. The number of workers employed flexibly or as freelancers has doubled in absolute numbers (CBS, 2019). This flexibilization is in the Dutch media often seen as leading to increased insecurity and stress (AD, 2017; Financieel dagblad, 2019; NRC, 2019; Parool, 2019; Reformatorisch Dagblad, 2019; Telegraaf, 2019; Volkskrant, 2019). The afore referenced news media represent a sample that cuts across Dutch society and therefore highlights the generally

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increased precarity due to lower incomes and less job security. The insecurity generated through labor market flexibilization is clearly visible in the Dutch case.

Insecurity is an essential part of precariousness. However insecurity is very broad and needs to be further specified. Standing defines different kinds of security. These are employment security, labor market security, job security, skill reproduction security, income security, representation security and work security. Standing defines these concepts with a focus on precariousness at work but his definitions of these concepts largely ignore the impacts of these insecurities on the livelihoods of people beyond the existence of insecurity itself. Furthermore, while the concepts that define precariousness that Standing set out give a good analytical toolbox for analyzing precarious labor, some scholars contest his idea of the development of a new global social class called the precariat (Neilson & Rossiter, 2008; Breman, 2013; Munck, 2013). Reasons for this center around several different issues. The first being that precariousness is seen as a change from the Fordist standard employment relationship (SER) which was not the standard at any point in history (Neilson & Rossiter, 2008). Furthermore seeing precariousness in this light makes it a concept which limits itself to be applicable to generally advanced economies as precarity is the standard in the global south (Munck, 2013). Precarity can thus be argued to be Western/Eurocentric concept. Additionally it can be argued that the precariously employed globally have never before had this much influence on their labor conditions through labor unions and democratic governance compared to the proletariats political power at earlier points in history (Munck, 2013). While this criticism on precariousness is valid, this paper will focus on labor in Amsterdam. This makes the eurocentrism of the concept not necessarily problematic as the research is being done in Europe. It is however good to be aware of the limitations of the framework surrounding precariousness.

A different part of precarity is that the precarious do not have access to sick leave, pensions, and paid holidays (Standing, 2017). This is happening to flex-workers with 0-hour contracts in the Netherlands for whom vacation days are paid in advance in the hourly wage and sick leave or unemployment benefits are practically non-existent (FNV, 2019).

This results in extra insecurity, because these people need to bear the risks on their own without the security provided by the welfare state. Therefore, people who were unable to save up enough money before falling ill or not being called in to work sufficiently will need to take on debt to provide for themselves. Furthermore flexible workers are the first ones to be unemployed when their hours get cut, their contracts not are renewed or they simply get fired because they are cheaper to dismiss than workers in permanent positions, which can easily cost more than 10 000 euros in the Netherlands (Crouch, 2009; Burgerlijk wetboek boek 7 artikel 673 lid 2, 2019). Not only does this

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mean that the state no longer provides security for the precariously employed, it also means that they will be the first ones to suffer from economic downturn as they are the cheapest to fire and the first ones to pay for the economic downturn by being forced to take on debt to provide for

themselves and thus simultaneously fuel the economy. Flexibilization can thus result in increased precarity.

States have tried to respond to this by implementing policies that will increase employment security at the cost of job security in order to decrease precarity, a model also known as flexicurity. This effectively means that it has been made easier to hire and fire people in an attempt to stimulate job growth. This is coupled with “generous” benefits to the unemployed which can reduce precarity (Burroni & Keune, 2011). The increases in employment security because of the larger pool of jobs and the welfare provided by the state should moderate the precarization of livelihoods which can result from less job security. Flexicurity has been embraced by EU institutions as a way to combine and enhance flexibility and security on the labor market (European Commission, 2019). The concept has been critiqued as being so broad that any labor market reform could be framed as flexicurity (Burroni & Keune, 2011). Furthermore flexicurity often turned out to be ineffective without more social programs focused on job skills and general welfare (Ibid.).

The third aspect of preciousness is that the precariously employed are losing some of their civil, political, cultural, and economic rights (Standing, 2017). In the Netherlands this is visible in the differences between the flex-workers and the permanent workers in social security and job security (Keun, 2013). The precariously employed also lack a work-based identity which hampers the

development of social movements or unions that stand up for the rights and needs of these workers (Standing, 2011). The increase in insecurity and flexibility that requires laborers to find new jobs constantly is one of the causes for this lack of work-based identity (Schoemaker, 2003). This makes it difficult for laborers to establish an identity around the work they do and identify with the

organization they work at (Ibid.). Thus their capacity to act and influence their situation is limited, reducing their labor agency as it becomes more difficult to build solidarity and organize themselves in labor unions or other bodies of representation due to the lack of a common identity.

Labor agency is one form of agency amongst many. Agency has become a rather fluid term that can mean many different things. One possible definition of agency is the following:

[agency is] “the temporally constructed engagement by actors of different structural environments, the temporal-relational contexts of action which, through the interplay of habit, imagination, and judgment, both reproduces and transforms those structures in interactive response to the problems posed by changing historical situations.” (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998)

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This quote can be paraphrased into something more easily digestible, but less precise and eloquent like:

Agency is the real-world engagement in a certain time frame, by individual and groups of people, NGO’s, political institutions, or other actors that can influence society through their habits, judgements and imagination.

Labor agency uses agency but limits itself to those aspects of agency that concern labor. Hereby limiting the huge scope of the agency concept which enables a deeper but also more

monodisciplinary analysis of certain issues. Traditionally labor agency is seen as the organization of workers through unions in global production networks (Lund-Thomson, 2013). However it is broader than this. Workers have agency in choosing when and how much they work (Ibid.). Workers can also choose to migrate to regions where they anticipate better prospects (Castree et al., 2004). Labor agency thus analyzes how and how much workers can impact their working conditions (Cumbers et al., 2008). Labor agency can thus be a moderator in the precarization and flexibilization of labor. One part of this precariousness is precarious employment which has been defined as follows:

“I define precarious employment as work for remuneration characterized by uncertainty, low income, and limited social benefits and statutory entitlements.”

Vosko, 2010

Vosko thus defines precarious employment broader than just uncertainty and/or low income and insecurity of work. Furthermore Vosko sees precarity in general as a broader concept which includes the relationship between the insecure work and income, social context, and social location. This is somewhat similar to Standing as both allow social insecurity to be a part of precariousness and thus make the concept broader than insecurity of work and income itself. Precariousness in this paper will be operationalized to be similarly broad and focus on the precarity of the livelihood. This means that precarious labor or work is only one aspect of a general precarious livelihood.

Precarious livelihoods

However, what is a precarious livelihood? Logically it is the opposite of a sustainable and thus maintainable livelihood. A sustainable livelihood is one that can maintain itself and/or improve its future capabilities to do so while being able to deal with stress and shocks (Chambers & Conway, 1991). To analyze precarious livelihoods amongst students in the Amsterdam horeca industry it will therefore be necessary to also look at their housing, health, material security and personal

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operationalization. Adopting this view makes precarity in this thesis similar to the definition originally adopted in (southern) Europe of precariousness as a general experience of uncertainty (Arnold & Bongiovi, 2012). However this view on what a precarious livelihood is, is highly place and culture specific. If this concept is ever used in a different paper it would be important to re-analyze what is essential to livelihoods in other places and cultures.

This paper therefore combines Vosko’s definition of precarious employment with some of Vosko’s, Standing’s, and more general southern European ideas surrounding precariousness, and some ideas surrounding the sustainable livelihoods framework to form the following definition of precariousness: Precariousness is the sum of insecurities stemming from the different aspects of precarious

livelihoods.

This definition is a good fit with this research as it allows analysis of student livelihoods in a precarious framework, especially amongst students who also face insecurity in other areas of their lives. Furthermore, little research has been done on the impacts of flexible labor on the work school balance amongst Dutch students, even though young adults make up over half of the employees in the Amsterdam horeca sector and research has shown a consistent increase in the number of working students, flexible labor and stress/burn-out amongst students (ISO, 2017; CBS, 2018). Students as a group are also often not represented as a unit of analysis in Dutch governmental literature on flexible labor. Instead there is a focus on people aged 15-25. Doing a quick search for the keyword student or students in documents from the CBS or SCP generally do not give any or few results (See for example: “Dynamiek op de Nederlandse arbeidsmarkt” or “wat zijn flexwerkers” (CBS, 2015; CBS, 2018) and “meer flexwerkers krijgen een vast contract” (UWV, 2019)).

One caveat when using the precariousness framework when analyzing student labor is that

precariousness is often coupled with hopelessness and an expectation for the situation of the laborer to not get better. Students are therefore often not thought of as doing precarious labor in the Dutch context considering their supposedly better position on the labor market after their higher education. This of course assumes that students that are employed precariously at the moment will succeed in their university career and acquire their diploma. This is not always the case, especially because students that have to work more than twenty hours a week combined with studying are far more likely to drop out (Beerkens et al., 2011 & Hovdhaugen, 2012). Besides dropping out, working while following university courses can contribute to bad mental health resulting in for example burn-out and lower success rates in university (Galbraith, & Merril, 2012). This is what makes the addition of the other aspects of livelihoods necessary. However as previously mentioned these different aspects

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can differ a lot because what different people consider precarious or a good life differs from place to place and culture to culture. The aspects in this thesis are not one-size fits all.

Chapter 3: Methodology

Due to the lack of previous research on this specific topic in the Dutch context, this research is an exploratory one. The goals are to discover if and how the interviewees are being influenced by their increasing participation on the labor market and how the changes in the Dutch welfare system have influenced the interviewed students. Furthermore the research will acquire knowledge about the collective and individual bargaining power of students and their influence on their own labor in the horeca sector. The answers to these questions could help guide future research and might set priorities for large scale studies in the future. With the means at my disposal and considering the specific topic, it is difficult to analyze this problem with quantitative methods as these methods do not suit the research questions. Therefore the research employed a selection of qualitative research methods to answer the research question. These consisted of a desk research and in-depth

interviews with different actors.

During the study a representative of FNV horeca and student councilor have been interviewed. Furthermore 12 students have also been interviewed on experiences with student labor.

Unfortunately of the interviewed students only one was an ethnic minority which means that the perspective of different ethnic minorities might not properly be presented in this paper. Furthermore the horeca employer’s association did, after initial interest, not respond to any of the attempts to make an appointment for interview them to account for their perspective. The perspective of establishment owners is thus not properly considered when writing this paper. Additionally the Amsterdam student union (ASVA) was only willing to do an interview over the phone, which is understandable, but would make interviewing difficult. The student union did not respond to e-mails about a short face to face interview. Luckily the employers’ associations and the student unions do provide documentation on their views on the topics treated in this paper, which means that the paper can still report on them, albeit sub-optimally.

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Operationalization

To effectively conduct interviews with students employed in the horeca sector and analyze the impacts on their lives, several concepts required operationalization. Starting with the most

straightforward: Amsterdam. The research has been conducted on students studying and working in Amsterdam. As students often live in Diemen or Amstelveen which are different municipalities this research will focus on their place of work and study which is generally in Amsterdam proper. Students will be defined as people who follow full-time tertiary higher education (HBO and WO). Vocational students will be excluded in this research because of the age gap between people finishing MBO in comparison with people finishing HBO or WO. Furthermore the CBS only considers people with a HBO or WO diploma to be higher educated (CBS, 2019).

Several factors influence the impacts of working amongst students attending university. The expected factors and relations are visible in diagram 1, visualized on page 17. As can be seen in the diagram, this research has four independent variables. These are: social participation costs and basic needs which pressure the life needs of students. This pressure is lessened by welfare provided by the government to students through rent grants, insurance grants and supplementary student grants. When students cannot supply their own basic needs, they generally have two choices: increase their debt and/or start working. If a student increases their debt, they will have less money in the future because of the interest on and repayment of these student loans. Student loans have previously been established to be a source of stress for students. It is therefore expected that students will start working.

The time worked will likely be derived from the employer’s demand for labor and the willingness of the student to sell their labor for money. However, most contracts come with restrictions and minimums on the hours worked and the employer also has agency in the time spent working by the student which is why hours worked is influenced by two variables. When students are working they will not be able to relax or study. This can lead to decreased time available for school and increased stress because of low grades and/or a lack of down time.

If a student chooses to compensate the lack of time available for study with time normally spent on leisure, this can decrease the social participation of students with peers and time spent relaxing which can also lead to stress (Maslow, 1970; Trout, 1980). The increased stress can then negatively impact the mental health of students which could be a reason for the increasing burn-out rates amongst students when at the same time the number of working students has been increasing. The

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time spent at work can also increase the exhaustion and chance of workplace injury amongst students, which can be further reinforced by bad labor conditions eventually taking a toll on mental, and physical health.

These labor conditions will influence school performance as students suffering from mental or physical illness will call in sick, drop out or become unmotivated. However working students would presumably have to take out less debt in comparison with students who do not work and will likely have more money for their life needs, thus increasing the chances they have sufficient funds for social participation which can reduce stress.

Work experience can also be positive for the chances of a student on the labor market after their studies, increasing the chance that students are able to find a good job then and thus increasing the chance they can meet their needs in the future. In the end this leads to a systems diagram in which students have to make a trade-off between foreseeing in their life needs and making sure they do well in school. This is visualized by the school work balance in the diagram. After considering the final results of this paper this diagram will be redrawn and given in appendix II.

Students can also influence the conditions, rewards, job security and schedules at the workplace through their labor agency. This could be done through trade unions but also by students individually talking to their employers or taking other individual or collective actions. Labor agency is thus the ability of employees to influence and shape their labor to their preferences (Cumbers et al., 2008; Riisgaard, 2009, Lund-Thomsen, 2013). Labor agency will therefore be measured by asking

interviewees how much influence they have on their labor conditions like their work schedules, pay and labor conditions. It will also be determined by looking at how often students are members of trade unions and what those unions can achieve in the horeca sector.

Another key concept that has been mentioned frequently is flexible labor. Flexible labor will be defined in this research in accordance with the definition of the CBS. The CBS considers all employees that are not employed indefinitely with a set number of hours to be flexible laborers (CBS, 2019). Additionally the self-employed with personnel or people employed in their family business are considered to be working flexibly. This is similar to the academic literature on the topic as flexible labor is seen in contrast to the SER (Arnold & Bongiovi, 2012). Adopting this view of flexible labor is also the most practical in the Dutch context because it enables the researchers to analyze workers hired through temp agencies, 0-hour contracts, short term contracts and freelancers (ZZP’ers), instead on only one of these different forms of flexible labor.

Labor market flexibilization can increase precariousness as it can enable employers to pay laborers less and use their labor more flexibly, which can harm the income of laborers earn when their

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employer need less labor, because they have gotten less hours to work. This is cheaper for employers because they do not have to pay their workforce in unproductive seasons or times. These changes and the inconsistency in how much workers earn results in insecurity as the increased volatility of incomes affects the stability of worker livelihoods. This insecurity of income is an important aspect of precarity (Vosko, 2010; Standing, 2011).

Another aspect of precarity is the job security of workers (Vosko, 2010). Job security is the security of a position an employee works in. This aspect thus measures how easy it is to get rid of employees. The easier workers can be fired the less job security they have. Job security is however very different from a similar sounding form of security; employment security.

Employment security is a concept that measures the chance of an employee to find new work after being fired or otherwise being forced out of their current job. The larger the chance of employees is of finding a new job the more employment security they have (Madsen et al., 2002). Job and employment security are thus very different.

As mentioned in the theoretical framework precariousness is broader than these two aspects. Other aspects that have been introduced there are housing, health, material security and personal

development security. Without housing, access to healthcare or material security student livelihoods will inherently be unstable and precarious due to the rather obvious problems associated with insufficient access to any of the aforementioned aspects. Personal development security might seem less obvious but students are mainly focused on studying, or at least one would hope so. Not being able to study effectively due to a lack of time or other reasons will negatively impact their financial situation in the future because of the increases in debt and delayed increases in income that would be associated with studying longer or even stopping their academic pursuits.

Housing is an aspect of precarious livelihoods as not having a place to live or often having to move negatively impacts job and employment security because it is harder to maintain and find a job without a place where one can reproduce their labor by for example sleeping, cooking, and cleaning. This will be measured by asking students about their housing situations and doing desk research into the affordability and availability of rooms and apartments in Amsterdam for students.

Material security in this paper will be defined as having enough money to fulfill ones live needs, including the need for housing. The boundary in this paper is the poverty line set by the SCP but can vary wildly on local expectations, costs, and customs. Not being able to do groceries or buy clothes is obviously an indicator of a precarious livelihood as it is commonly accepted that food, clothes, and clean water are a human right. However material security is broader than this. In the modern world access to a computer witch internet, whether it be a smartphone, laptop or a desktop is mandatory.

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Much of the interaction with the Dutch government is done via DigiD, a digital platform and this situation is similar for many different institutions like the university, energy providers, water providers etc. The boundary set by the SCP also accounts for expenses like this and thus gives a good overview of what one needs to supply in their basic needs. Whether people can supply in their basic needs is analyzed in the interviews by asking them how much financial trouble they have. This will also be analyzed via the desk research as the CBS, SCP and other institutions have a lot of data on poverty in the Netherlands.

Health is similarly important in the precarious livelihoods context. For many people around the globe poverty is only one illness away as healthcare can be unaffordable, otherwise inaccessible, and simultaneously not optional. If one could not afford to seek treatment or doesn’t because of anxiety over potential costs in money and time this can result in reduced job security because of the

consequences of falling ill in a 0-hour or ZZP construction. Illness in construction like these is a risk bared by the employee instead of the employer as workers will not be payed when they don’t actually work. To analyze this aspect of precarious livelihoods research will be done into work safety in horeca as workplace accidents can result in injury and long-term illness. This will be done by asking respondents about the labor conditions at work and researching the governmental literature on this topic. Furthermore precarious employment also influences the health of those affected (Vives et al., 2011). Desk research into the impacts of precarious livelihoods on health will therefore also be done. The last aspect of precarious livelihoods is personal development security. Chambers & Conway state that livelihoods should be able to improve themselves. Studying is one way in which this can be achieved. Standing notes that hopelessness is also a characteristic of precariousness. However students generally have good reason to be optimistic about their futures as university is often seen as a way to increase one’s chances of being “successful”. In order to study successfully students need to be able to have sufficient time to develop themselves through their studies and/or extracurricular activities. If they are unable to do so it might give them feelings of hopelessness and being trapped in the flexible labor they might currently be employed in. Furthermore it will increase the precarity of their livelihoods as being unsuccessful in college will often mean studying longer, acquiring more debt, and thus having a reduced future income or even stopping with studying in general. In a more general sense development security could also incorporate training at work and other forms personal development. As this paper focusses on students, development security will limit itself to the ability of students to follow higher education. The security of personal development will thus mostly manifest itself in students being able to afford tuition costs and the time to study as well as through the extracurricular activities students are able to do such as a year in the board of a student association or a commission as these are often also considered to be important for personal development. The degree to which students experience these aspects of livelihood security will again

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be determined through the interview by asking them if they have sufficient time to study and through a desk research which will analyze the impacts of labor market flexibilization and working beside studying on rate of progress in student education. Adjusting the diagram provided below for these different forms of security results in the less cluttered causal loop diagram in Appendix II.

(Diagram 1: student labor and the hypothetical impacts on livelihoods and work-school balance visualized)

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The interviews

To see whether the expected relations set out in the previous paragraph are correct, in-depth interviews have been held. In-depth interviews allow the researcher to understand if the expected relations hold true by asking students about the expected topics (Bryman, 2012). To this end semi-structured interviews have been held with twelve students living and studying in Amsterdam to see how working in the horeca sector influences their work life balance and feelings of precariousness. This number of interviews was chosen because a point of data saturation was reached wherein interviewees had similar answers to interviewees before them and no new knowledge was being acquired. While twelve interviewees might seem like a relatively low number, it can be sufficient to analyze cases, especially when new interviews do not result in new data being gathered (Bryman, 2012). Some respondents for the interviews have been selected through student associations in Amsterdam. Furthermore this research has made use of snowballing by asking certain interviewees if they know other potential candidates for interview. This ensures a large pool of potential candidates. However in personal experience, student associations have proven to be mostly populated with white members. This has created a bias in the research because ethnic minorities are underrepresented. All interviews have been taken in Dutch as this is the native language of all respondents and they will thus be better able to express themselves, but the interviews could also have been held in English if that would be preferred by the interviewees. To mitigate the bias from sampling in a student association, snowballing has been reasonably effective, but it did have the effect of some of the interviewees working in the same workplace. Five of the interviewed were male and seven of the interviewed were female, which ensures the perspective of different genders.

In depth interviews also enable the researcher to flexibly analyze the experiences of interviewees, as the recordings of the interviews can be listened to again (Bryman, 2012). During the interviews with students the following item list provided in Appendix I have been used.

With this item list the researcher was able to thoroughly analyze the impacts of working on different facets of students’ lives and how flexibilization has influenced working for students. Interviewing students that are not currently employed in the horeca has enabled the researcher to understand why students left the labor market or chose not to get in.

Furthermore FNV horeca has been interviewed as an expert on the horeca industry and the challenges and successes of collective bargaining and agency in the industry. Interviews have also been held with a student advisor from the university of Amsterdam as student advisors have in-depth knowledge about physical and psychological complaints amongst students. This deepened and contextualized the research because of the in-depth knowledge that experts like these can provide.

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Student advisors are uniquely suited to talk about the impacts they have seen amongst students of the increasing frequency of student labor. The FNV is a good expert organization to interview because of their role in the establishment of the collective bargaining agreement for the horeca industry and their role as a trade union. During these interviews the item list given in Appendix 1: FNV horeca, has been used.

The recordings of the interview have been saved digitally to make further analysis possible. The analysis has been done by noting down timestamps of the relevant parts of the interview and summarizing the recording. Doing the analysis of the interviews will save a lot of time because it will not be necessary to transcribe the entire interview, which is a very time-consuming process (Bryman, 2012). Instead relevant parts can be listened to again when analyzing and reviewing the interviews, while the summary gives an overview of the general interview. According to Bryman there are certain objections to digital analysis like the high costs and the possible compatibility problems, but these are basically non-existent when using most smartphones and computers. These items are already in the possession of most academics and hard disk storage has become much cheaper in recent years.

Desk research

Besides interviews, the research has utilized a desk research wherein the literature and data provided by the Dutch state through the CBS the SCP and other channels have been analyzed. Furthermore the desk research has made use of the literature available through trade unions, scientific institutions or employers, associations like the FNV, “de burcht” or the KHN. This research has employed the

methods of qualitative content analysis. Qualitative content analysis is a method of research wherein texts are analyzed by searching for paragraphs where content relevant to the research is mentioned (Bryman, 2012). These paragraphs have been marked and coded according to their theme for later review and analysis.

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Ethics

To ensure that this research is ethical it will use the questions provided by the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) to review and provide transparency on ethical research.

“How have respondents been recruited and how is their privacy ensured?”

Respondents have been found through the previously described methodology.

Interviewees have been asked to consent to the in-depth interviews beforehand and asked for permission to record the interview. They will also get a general insight into the research topic so they know how the data provided by them will be used in advance.

“How did the research questions address, reflect, critique or otherwise relate to the concerns of the various people to whom the research pertains?”

The research could clash with the concerns of trade unions, employers’ associations, political parties, and even student unions. However these impacts are not be large considering the fact that this thesis is a master’s thesis. Furthermore if this thesis would have impacts they can most likely be considered to be positive by most of these organizations and actors as it highlights the precarity that students increasingly face.

“Has the information gathering harmed people or did it have to potential to do so?”

During the interviews, data might have been acquired from interviewees that could potentially harm them in the future. Therefore the students doing the in-depth interviews have been quoted or paraphrased under fake names and described in a way as to make sure they will not be able to be identified. This is because it could be considered embarrassing to not be able to get by or experience a lot of stress while attending university. Furthermore, it helped make sure students were not anxious of facing potential reprisals by their employers. Additionally only their general background will be described to make it more difficult to pin certain statements on one individual. These measures were not taken during the expert-interviews as that would make the “expertness” of the experts very difficult to prove.

“How have people been asked for their consent to be researched and has their anonymity been promised?”

The interviewed have been asked to consent to being recorded and interviewed before starting the interview. If they refuse either of these questions the interview will not happen. Some respondents have been told their names will be changed in the thesis to make sure they are less recognizable and

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when describing respondents it will be done in a manner that does not make it easy to identify them as a person. Their anonymity has however not been promised but the research does try to maintain it. Furthermore this has not been done during the expert interviewees.

“How has been dealt with the materials you have assembled?”

The data will not be released to the general public as that would hamper the relative anonymity of the interviewees. However peer review remains a cornerstone of the scientific community so the interested can request a meeting to listen to the audio tapes of the interviews together with the researcher of this paper as long as they do not record the audio files. Furthermore the data will not be stored online but instead be stored on 2 different hard drives. One external and one internal. This is intended to balance the principles of openness and privacy as described by the AISSR.

Where when and for whom have you published and how have you made sure that it will be good in the ethical sense of the word?

This is a master’s thesis and thus primarily meant for the 1st_{and 2}nd_{reader. This means that this} paper is not entirely independent as the research depends on their approval in order for it to be accepted. Taking into consideration the impacts of the results in this thesis it can be said that it would be unlikely for it to have much societal impact as no earth-shattering revelations have been made. The actors that could be hurt by its results are the Dutch state, political parties and horeca business owners. The first and second due to the analysis of the Dutch student welfare system and its current shortcomings and due to the bad labor conditions in the horeca. Highlighting this could spark or change the political debate around these topics and change the status quo. It could harm business owners by limiting the number of students who choose to work in horeca and it might make their businesses more expensive if this research positively influences labor conditions in the working place. Similarly, business associations could take some of the statements in this paper out of its context and use it to argue for increased labor flexibilization for students.

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Chapter 4: A changing welfare system and economy

Dutch labor policy and governance

Dutch economic development has historically been dominated by the “poldermodel”. The poldermodel is essentially a governance method that enables a consensus driven stakeholder dialogue between employees and employers through government mediation that normally results in the establishment of agreed upon rewards and conditions for workers in differing sectors of the economy (De Vries, 2014; van Zanden, 2002). These agreements are then made into an “CAO” (collective labor agreement). Currently 85% of Dutch employees working 12 hours or more work through a collective labor agreement (CNV, 2019).

Originally the Poldermodel developed in the postwar period, when the Dutch government started setting wages in consultation with trade unions and employer organizations to enable the Dutch postwar economy to make a quick recovery from the damage caused in World War II (Zanden, 2002; SER, 1953). The guided wage model ended when unemployment in the Netherlands decreased to one percent. This was so low that the system collapsed due to its own success as employers had to outbid each other on the informal market to acquire new employees, especially in quickly growing sectors like the steel and manufacturing industry (Zanden, 2002). In 1959 this system was abolished and wages were instead coupled to productivity increases on a sectoral basis to be determined by the government. Because of the sheer amount and difficulty of measuring and quantifying every

productivity increase the government was effectively unable to oversee the wage increase policies of companies. Due to the continuing labor shortages, zealous labor unions and the failure of this system inflation soared as employers began competing over the little available labor with large wage and benefit increases (Ibid.).

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At this time the Netherlands still had a huge supply of underutilized labor as women were expected to stay at home and quit working after getting married as cam be seen in the poster created by a Dutch trade union to the right. One of the results of the increasing demand for labor was that the female labor force was opened up and women were increasingly

introduced in the Dutch labor force (NPO, 2019). Working women however did not get a reduction in the work they had to do around the house making it very hard to juggle work with all their other commitments. Dutch feminists therefore demanded part-time work, equal pay, and government sponsored childcare (Ibid.). It took until the end of the 1980’s before these goals were achieved and they were reached as a result of EU mandated laws concerning female labor participation and equal treatment.

(Mothers in the family, not the factory! catholic workers movement, 1950)

In the ten years that followed, labor participation amongst mothers skyrocketed to 50, 65 and 80 percent for lower, middle, and higher educated women respectively (NPO, 2019). Currently on the Dutch labor market 70 % of women work full-time and 58% of mothers work full-time compared to 94% of Dutch men and 93,5% of Dutch fathers (Women inc., 2019). Having children thus has a huge impact on labor participation rates amongst women while it does not influence men the same way. This probably means that women are more often taking care of the children compared to men. Dutch women also on average earn 15,5% less than their male counterparts for the same work (Ibid.). While women entered the Dutch labor market, the Dutch economy started deindustrializing. The discovery and extraction of natural gas in Groningen is often seen as the cause of deindustrialization in the Netherlands, as the profitable gas sector supposedly attracted a large share of the national working force and investment (Corden, 1984). However the deindustrialization experienced during this time is more likely a combination of lower transaction costs leading to globalization and the increasing costs of manufacturing in the Netherlands due to the aforementioned increasing wages and benefits (Corden, 1984; Zanden, 2002; Gereffi, 2013).

Globalization has continued to change the labor market in western Europe throughout the 20th_and 21st_{century because of the increasing ease of communication resulting in the possibility of offshoring} more complex parts of a production system in developing countries with lower wages (Baldwin, 2011). This process combined with increased automation are likely also a large part of the reason why

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the amount of people employed in the industrial sector has decreased with about 150,000 (CBS, 2017). However, another large change on the Dutch labor market has appeared.

The increasing prevalence of flexible labor

In the Netherlands the number of temporary workers has more or less doubled since 1995 and now numbers 795 000 employees (Webbink, 2017). In comparison with other European (EU28) nations the Netherlands is second in the percentage of temporary workers compared to the size of the overall workforce (Ibid.). This highlights a process that is currently happening in the Netherlands: the

flexibilization of the Dutch labor market.

The Dutch central bureau of statistics (2018) defines flexible workers as follows: all employees who do not have a permanent contract with a fixed number of hours for at least one year, are not self-employed with employees or are working for self-self-employed family, are flexible workers. The group of flexible workers is thus very diverse and ranges from temporary workers to freelancers to people employed with 0-hour contracts. When combining these groups about 30% of Dutch employees are employed flexibly, literally translated: “flex-workers “(CBS, 2018b). As mentioned previously, the prevalence of flex-workers and flex-work is high in the Netherlands compared to the EU28 average and this group grew by 6.1% between 2007 and 2017 (Ibid). Compared with other groups on the labor market people between 15-25 are more likely than people between 25 and 45 or 45 and 75 to be workers (CBS, 2018). 791 000 people between 15 and 25 years old are employed as flex-workers (CBS, 2018). Working in flexible positions and arrangements is thus generally something done by the young. Amongst the young adults 0-hour contracts are the most prevalent while older people are more likely to be employed through a temp agency (CBS, 2018). Women are also slightly more likely to work part-time but less likely to work as flex-workers. This means that Dutch women are more likely to be permanently employed on a part-time basis (Ibid.). This idea is reinforced by the fact that women between 18 and 25 are more likely to work part-time than their male counterparts (SCP, 2018). Simultaneously men are more often employed on a full-time basis than women (SCP, 2018). Interestingly, while women are more often employed in flexible labor arrangements (part-time labor) men are more often employed as flex-workers (0-hour contracts and/or temp agencies or freelancers) (CBS, 2019).

This increase in flexible labor was originally seen as undesirable by Dutch unions (Keune, 2013). To deal with the increasing prevalence of flexible labor, Dutch unions tried to get flex-work the same benefits as other types of employment to include them into the labor market as another form of the standard employment relationship (Ibid.). To achieve this goal unions accepted more flexibility for employers if flex-work was increasingly included in social security. These workers’ rights were

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guaranteed in the treaty of Wassenaar in 1982, eventually leading to the 1999 law on flexibility and security (Keune, 2013). This model of increased flexibility in exchange for social security and guarantees on workers’ rights is known as flexicurity (Keune, 2013; Viebrock & Claasen, 2009). Flexicurity as a labor-model is the result of a perceived demand for flexibility and deregulation of labor markets in European economies (Viebrock & Claasen, 2009). This increasing demand for flexibility amongst employers decreases job security and therefore the income security for workers, which is why flexicurity aims to increase employment security and social security to make workers able to find new jobs easier when they lose their previous one and have access to benefits to help them during this transition from one job to the next (Viebrock & Klaassen, 2009; Standing, 2014). The flexibility of the Dutch labor market has increased and in some sectors flexible labor

arrangements are now the standard instead of the exception (Keune, 2013). This is not the role for flexible labor originally envisioned by labor unions like the Federated Dutch Unions, commonly known as the FNV, where flexible labor would be a supplement to permanent labor providing an extra labor pool during periods of high demand such as harvesting time in agriculture or the summer in the horeca (Ibid.). While some institutions like the OECD argue that flexibilization is the cause of the growth on the Dutch labor market, some academics theorize that flexicurity only benefits the most skilled unemployed and that the lower-educated, handicapped, or ethnic minorities are disadvantaged by this system as they for example have a harder time finding new work (OECD, 2004; Madsen et al., 2002). The FNV notices these disadvantages amongst employees in certain jobs like cleaners, teachers, taxi-drivers, construction workers and in temp-agencies (Keune, 2013).

Furthermore, according to research from the CBS 83% of flex-workers would rather have a permanent position than a flexible one. They work in flexible types of employment because they have to and not out of personal preference (CBS, 2016). Flex workers are also less likely to be trained by their

employers and employers invest less in them than in more permanent employees (CBS, 2015). This decreases the employment security of flex workers as it will be harder to find a new job when one has not been properly trained or educated on new developments in their field during their time of employment. They are also cheaper to replace if employers have not invested in the development of skills amongst these flexibly employed. In the long term it could also decrease the quality of the labor pool for horeca establishment owners.

Additionally after three contracts with one employer or working for the same employer for two years or longer a flexible contract will change into a permanent one. In practice this can cause employers not to renew the third half-year or year contract of a flexible employee because permanent

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employees. Contrasting sharply with the previous system of employment in the Netherlands where employees in most organizations could expect to stay with their employer until the end of their career.

Student Welfare System

While the labor market became more flexible Dutch students have also faced a lot of changes in the student welfare system. In 1986 the Dutch government set up the ‘basisbeurs’. In 1986 this consisted of a grant of 600 guilders a month for students living on their own and rent-free loans (532,37 euro in 2018) (Trouw, 2012). This was a form of welfare aimed at students to ensure financial independence. The system changed a lot over the years but the grant consisted of 286 or a 102 euros a month respectively for students living on their own and with their parents when it was discontinued for new students in 2015 (LSVB, 2019). Besides the basisbeurs students with low income parents had access to a supplementary grant called the ‘aanvullende beurs’. This amounted to 266 euros for students living independently and 245 euros for students that lived with their parents. On top of this, student loans were available to all up to 731 euros. Furthermore, students also had and currently have access to a limited supply of student housing and get free public transit during the working week or the weekends and holidays depending on their personal preference.

This system has changed in 2015 when the basisbeurs was cancelled and student loans were expanded. Students could now loan up to 1057 euros a month but no longer get the 286-euro grant (DUO, 2019). These loans are tied to the interest the Dutch government pays on 5-year bonds resulting in Dutch students currently paying 0% interest on these loans for the next 5-years (DUO, 2019; Volkskrant, 2016). After 5 years the debt will be refinanced and Dutch students will pay the new bond rent over their loans. The Dutch government has had low interest on their bonds due to uncertainty in the financial markets and the European central bank buying up bonds in the

quantitative easing scheme (ECB, 2019). Furthermore, since January 2019 no new money will be used for quantitative easing, only the money on payed off loans will be used (ECB, 2019b). This will could cause interest on government bonds to go up as it will be harder to attract buyers for these loans which in turn means that the interest students pay on these loans will rise. In 1993 the interests on student loans was as high as 9,5% and in the years before the great recession the interest hovered around 4% (DUO, 2019). This might be a part of the reason the Dutch government wanted to tie the interest rate of student loans to 10-year bonds instead of 5-year bonds as these are presumably more resistant to interest rate changes.

Going from 0 to 4% interest in the next couple of decades could hurt purchasing power in of the younger generations. This effect is moderated by the fact that the Dutch government decided that in

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the new system students will never have to spend more than 4% of their and their partners income above the minimum wage on their governmental student loans (DUO, 2019). Assuming a two-person household will have an average student debt and two average incomes, the family would need to pay 100 euros a month under the current 0% interest. At most 144 euros a month under current

minimum wage could be asked in monthly payments from this family. No matter how much is loaned and how high rents are because of the 4% rule. While this can be a lot in certain situations, it will likely not cause bankruptcy among affected households.

What does hinder the future financial independence of Dutch students is the impact of student debt when buying a house. Assuming the previously mentioned average family would like to buy a house, their mortgage at a Dutch bank will be 90 000 euros less than a comparable family without student debt (Rabobank, 2019). When getting a mortgage, a family can at most loan the value of the house they want to buy (Ibid.). A family with this student debt would be unable to buy the average 2019 house of 294 000 because their maximum mortgage is 272 00 euros (Rabobank, 2019). To buy this house this family would have to save up around 30 000 euros to bridge this gap and pay for the extra costs which come with buying a home. Partially due to this 65% of current home buyers expect to need financial help from their parents when buying a home (NOS, 2018). Without these rules the family could at most lend 361 000 as a mortgage (Ibid.).

Renting instead of buying is not a good option either. The average rent faced by ex-students who would like to stay in Amsterdam is 22,79 euros per m^2 (nhn, 2018). To rent an apartment in the private sector renters need to earn at least 48 times the net rent a month every year. This means that this household cannot rent a 65 m^2 apartment in Amsterdam. This apartment would cost them 1482 euros a month and they do not earn 48 times that amount in a year. This is almost double the monthly cost of buying an apartment or home in Amsterdam costing the previously mentioned 294 000 euros as the mortgage payment would be costing them 668 euros a month after tax cuts (Rabobank, 2019). Social housing is the last resort for households like these. However, they do not qualify for social housing because they earn more than 42 000 euros a year (Woningnet Amsterdam, 2019). Therefore the family is ineligible for these houses which can result in the family being forced to move outside of Amsterdam. For single ex-students the problems are even worse as they cannot find social housing due to the long waiting lists and will be unable to afford the high rents or house prices on their own.

While students are not always aware of these problems, most students in the interviews do know that student debt will limit their future income due to repayments and create issues when applying for a mortgage to buy a house. Furthermore, some interviewees mention that lending from the government makes them feel like they are leeches and gives them stress because they just do not like

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having debt. The impacts of lending on their future and the current livelihood thus encourages students to find a side-job to decrease or stop lending with.

Young adults have also been increasingly slow to start living together, buy their first home, have kids, or simply become employed in a standard employment relationship (CBS, 2019). This could be due to the fact that the welfare provided to students is insufficient to supply in a student’s basic needs in Amsterdam due to the high rents in the city and general cost increases for students such as increased health insurance costs, VAT, college fees and telecom expenses. This means that students with parents who don’t give them allowances, are effectively forced to work next to their studies in order to pay for rent, food and school or stay in their parental homes.

Unsurprisingly, students are more often seeking employment compared to previous years. There has been an 18,7 percent increase in employment amongst Dutch students and they now leave their parental homes on average one year later than they used to (CBS, 2018; CBS, 2019). This data is not specified to Amsterdam itself, but considering the high rents in Amsterdam in comparison with the rest of the country, it is unlikely that students would leave their parental homes earlier or work less (NHN, 2018). It should thus not come as a surprise that 22% of Dutch students have trouble with their financial situation and that 73% of Dutch students experience increased stress and uncertainty due to the changes in the student welfare system (ISO, 2019). The housing situation of students can thus be assumed to be one of the aspects which leads to increased income insecurity and therefore precarity. Considering the higher costs of living in Amsterdam the situation can be expected to be worse there. Furthermore, half of all students have to skip social activities or side activities because of financial reasons. Students have become less likely to do volunteer work in student associations, study associations or outside of the students social circle in for example a food bank (NRC, 2019). This couples back to one of the aspects of precarity mentioned by standing: the decreasing quality in leisure. Participating in cultural and political life was seen by Standing as an important part of leisure because it helps the precarious to shape and better their environments and he considers it to be good for the development of the mind in general. That students increasingly miss out on these activities could thus hamper their personal development security.

Precariousness employment amongst student

While the labor market as a whole became more flexible young adults are amongst those most affected by this development. 8 out of 10 employed students work in some kind of flexible work relationship (CBS, 2018). Most of the interviewees have 0-hour contracts, are employed via a temp agency or work on call. Furthermore, workers under 21 are payed according to a lower minimum

Working during college, a balancing act?