Path dependence in career mobility: The effect of precarious early work experience on career trajectories over the life course

My proposed research will contribute to a gap in the career
mobility and life course research literature by applying the
concept of path dependence (the insight that later
outcomes are related to earlier outcomes) to processes of
career mobility. Particularly, to test the extent to which
early precarious work experience (non-permanent, fixedterm
and low paid), affects the career trajectories of
different groups (by gender, ethnicity, social class), across
the life course. For this, I will apply the relatively underused
technique of sequence analysis to longitudinal survey data
and large scale online social network data. The findings will
have potential for policy as well as academic impact.