JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES

2019, VOL. 22, NO. 9, 1218–1237

https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2019.1570097

‘I don’t want to be a vagrant for the rest of my life’: young

peoples’ experiences of precarious work as a ‘continuous
present’
Kate Daisy Bonea,b
a
School of Management, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand; bDepartment of Management, Monash
University, Melbourne, Australia

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This work presents findings from a qualitative multi-case study Received 11 July 2018
investigating the lives of young, precariously employed academics Accepted 9 January 2019
working at a large Australian university. The lived experience of
KEYWORDS
precarious employment is explored through a temporal analysis of Australia; future; liquid
how lifestyles are conceived and constructed under the conditions modernity; new adulthood;
of liquid modernity. The findings highlight how participants felt precarious work; temporality;
limited in their capacity to commit to long-term life plans due to time; transitions; youth
invasive feelings of insecurity and dependency that confronted studies
participants with feelings of inadequacy. Participants referred to
an inability to make adult-like decisions and bind themselves to
future commitments such as independent living arrangements
and starting a family. Engagement with concepts of temporality
assisted in the theorising of a ‘continuous present’, which refers to
the deferring and sacrificing of lifestyle plans in the hope for an
imaginary future that never seems to arrive. This theorisation
contributes an understanding of how precarious employment can
disrupt the flow of culturally acceptable expectations surrounding
adulthood and how precarity develops over time. The analysis
illustrates that an extended durée of precarious employment
increases precarity beyond the present and into the future
temporal zone of young peoples’ lives.

Introduction
There is an incompatibility between precarious employment, as a fluid work arrangement,
and long-term life planning. Precarious work is marked by uncertainty, instability, and risk
(Bauman 2012; Kalleberg 2009; Standing 2011; Wilson and Ebert 2013), whereas long-term
plans or ‘settling down’ (starting a family, buying a house and other plans) require endur-
ing commitment, solidity, financial security and trust in the future (Adam 2010; McDonald
et al. 2011; Wilkins 2016). For this reason, precarious employment often causes a ripple
effect whereby experiences of precariousness, and associated feelings of instability and
insecurity, affect other aspects of a worker’s life (Chomsky 2011). Campbell and Price
(2016) draw from the extant literature to define five levels of precariousness. At the first
level, a worker may experience ‘precariousness in employment’ which refers to insecure
job characteristics such as a low level of rights and protections and minimal control

CONTACT Kate Daisy Bone k.bone@massey.ac.nz

© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 1219

over wages, working hours and conditions (Campbell and Price 2016). In more all-encom-
passing experiences of precariousness the authors refer to ‘precarious workers’ and ‘pre-
carity’ to suggest that the pervasive impact of employment insecurity impacts the
housing arrangements, welfare, and relationships of precarious workers (Campbell and
Price 2016). The connection between precarious work and precarious lives was observed
by Buchtemann and Quack (1990, 321) who claimed that precariousness can be deter-
mined by investigating job ‘hazards’, taking into account person-job fit and the worker’s
life and career structure in the mid-long term. The temporal manifestation of precarity
is important but often overlooked in the literature.
Precarious work can affect varying aspects of an employees’ life depending on the
social context as well as the needs of individual workers (Buchtemann and Quack 1990;
Keuskamp et al. 2013; Lewchuk, Clarke, and de Wolff 2011). It is important to explicate cat-
egories and hierarchies of precariousness because each level suggests a difference in the
extent to which precarious employment conditions are ‘transmitted to the worker’ (Camp-
bell and Price 2016, 316). The lived experience of precarious employment encompasses
structural features of employment (such as employment contract type, access to leave
entitlements, labour market trends) as well as contextual/structural factors that affect
the lives of workers (including their sense of security, housing options, effect on personal
relationships).
This article contributes to building a more nuanced picture of precarious employment/
precarious lives by offering an in-depth examination of the broader lives of a specific
group of precarious workers: young academics. Precarious academics are unique as
they are often pursuing the academic career out of a passion for research and/or teaching,
so they often justify experiences of precariousness in light of the potential long-term gain
of tenure within a prestigious and privileged profession (Kalfa, Wilkinson, and Gollan 2017;
Ylijoki 2010). This is a different scenario compared to low-skilled or vulnerable workers
necessarily focused on survival; for example, low-skilled migrant workers (McPhee
2016), or those who experience ‘persistent, recurrent or occasional’ poverty with few
options out (Shildrick et al. 2012, 15). Antonucci (2018, 888) makes the point that precar-
ious work does not necessarily lead to precarity, and those most at-risk of experiencing
precarity are identified by an ‘absolute necessity to rely on labour-market sources, due
to the lack or insufficiency of state support and family sources’. In comparison, academics
often ‘romanticize’ the profession they have chosen (Acker and Webber 2017, 548) and
might even ‘prefer precarious academic work to more stable or secure nonacademic
work’ (Hofmann 2018, 28–29). Hofmann (2018), a precarious academic who works
across two continents, exemplifies the conundrum academics face while working in
their passion industry and dealing with associated precarity:
I love reading, researching and writing, and longed to become part of the exciting world of
knowledge production. However, during my years of precarious academic work, floating
through different academic institutions, it has sometimes been hard to keep on believing in
my career … I may be a fool. (Hofmann 2018, 26–29)

The challenges associated with precarious work are real, even for professionals with high
levels of educational attainment and a variety of employment options. Allmer (2018, 393)
argues that the expansion of higher education emerges in support of the sentiment that
education is considered ‘a route out of poverty and disadvantage and to build a more
1220 K. D. BONE

socially just society’. This is ironic because through interviews with precariously employed
academics in Scotland, Allmer (2018) found that the staff at these universities were them-
selves in disadvantaged and stressful positions, despite having doctorate degrees. The
question then is: what keeps academics in this ‘game’ (Acker and Webber 2017, 550),
and prevents them from leaving? Acker and Webber (2017, 550) suggest that the
anchor to academia rests in a belief academics hold; that their engagement with precar-
ious academic work will ‘lead to a better future when the participants can enjoy the fruits
of their labour, relax a bit and follow their own desires: “life after tenure”, perhaps another
form of romanticizing’. As such, exiting academia is often only an option for those who are
‘no longer invested in the game … no longer captured by the illusio’ (Kalfa, Wilkinson, and
Gollan 2017, 14). The continuation of an academic career clearly provides an entry point to
develop an understanding of how precarity develops over time.
This article uniquely provides insight into the temporal dimension of precariousness
which is often neglected in the literature. The effect of long-term insecurity, and consider-
ations of the future lives of participants, paints a complex picture of precarity. Part of this
picture requires taking into account the age and stage of precarious workers in context.
Tempest and Coupland (2017, 2160) call for research investigating experiences of, and atti-
tudes towards, younger workers that reflect ‘specific, local cultural differences … ’. The
temporal perspective presented here encompasses ideas of the future/unknown/intangi-
ble, in combination with an interrogation of cultural ideals surrounding linear trajectories,
progression, and the normative life course for a specific group of young workers. A tem-
poral zone called the ‘continuous present’ is proposed as a key finding from the research.

Liquid modernity and future projections

Adam (2010, 361–362) argues that contemporary daily life is conducted ‘in the temporal
domain of open and fluid pasts and futures, mindful of the lived past and projectively
oriented towards the “not yet”’. However, future orientations can be problematic under
conditions of precariousness, as Bauman (2012) explains:
In the world in which the future is at best dim and misty but more likely full of risks and
dangers, setting distant goals, surrendering private interest in order to increase group
power and sacrificing the present in the name of a future bliss does not seem an attractive,
nor for that matter sensible, proposition. (163)

Individuals must cope with insecurity by living in the present and not clinging to antici-
pated futures; the very notion of which challenges anticipated trajectories and forward-
planning (Adam 2010). The fluidity characteristic of liquid modernity poses the challenge
of needing to cope with ‘social acceleration’ and instability by moulding oneself into a
fluid, flexible and willing being (Rosa 2015, 148). According to Woodman (2011, 125), con-
temporary theorists concur that ‘a future imagined as uncertain and rapidly changing is
reshaping the way people orient themselves in time’. A ‘situational identity’ is required
as ‘there is an acceleration not only of what individuals do and experience but also of
what they are’ (Rosa 2015, 148 original italics).
This liquid modernity context poses an obstacle to people who often value a sense of
stability in order to commit to certain career pathways and idealised futures. Precarious
employment literature highlights the challenges that people face in trying to mitigate
 JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 1221

risks, and manage the fluidity associated with precariousness. While people adopt strat-
egies to cope with accelerated change, Ylijoki (2010, 384) aptly describes the sentiment
of many people navigating the uncertainty of precarious life conditions: ‘There are
hardly any signs of satisfaction or pleasure at being wild and free from the bonds of per-
manent or long-term employment’. Inkson et al. (2012, 324) state that the very conceptu-
alisation of a career reflects ‘ongoing relationships between people and their work’ which
connects people with organisations across time. It is understandable that the ‘uncertainty
and unpredictability of future work opportunities’, which mark precarious employment
trends, make it hard for young people to plan their career pathways (Kalleberg 2009,
10). According to Furlong and Kelly (2005, 209), the changing labour market presents
risks that make ‘the very idea of stable, linear transitions intensely problematic for large
sections of the youth population – with a range of profound consequences for young
people, families, communities and the nation’. Feelings of uncertainty influence young
peoples’ experiences of wellbeing as they navigate and engage with structural social
changes and inequalities that can extend from their employment situation to other
aspects of their lives (Furlong and Kelly 2005; Standing 2011).
The ability of people to navigate their way in and out of the casual labour market and to
control the outcomes of precarious employment appears to be complex and age specific
(Keuskamp et al. 2013; Watson 2013). Adam (1995) describes how industrial time, related
to employment and labour, reflects how temporal dimensions of labour relate to a
workers’ broader ideals and actions:
… relations of power are not restricted to situations in which time is exchanged for money:
they permeate the most private times of consciousness, the moments ‘when’, the right
time to act, the timing of interaction, the tempo embedded in natural and social processes,
and the time-frames within which we organize social life. (Adam 1995, 28)

The temporal dimension of decision making is highlighted by questions such as: what
should I be doing in my life right now? What is expected of me as a young person today?
Such questions investigate social norms and identity. Wieland (2010, 504) explains that it
is important to connect personal identity (who am I?) with social identity (what should I
be?) by considering how ‘socially acceptable ideals of whom one should be are woven
into an individual’s understanding of whom he or she is … ’. Change across time is of
central importance as Luhmann (1976, 135) explains; ‘If you do not see or hear any
change, you will feel it in yourself. It is the dowry of organic life for its marriage with
culture’. Identity values are connected to the construction of time, as the time for certain
events to take place is socially determined (Adam 1995). Leccardi (2015, 44) explains that
the current acceleration in society is problematic for life planning and ‘mastery over time’:
… biography and identity have an irrepressible need for the medium-to-long term future …
This positive relationship among life-plan, biographical time, and identity, however, encoun-
ters difficulties when the future is foreshortened … The ungovernability of the future which
largely accounts for present-day uncertainty, therefore, not only renders long-term plans
potentially obsolete and predictions impracticable; it also alters the temporal structure of
identities, creating fertile ground for redefinition of their postulates, and primarily among
these the connection between identity and life-plan. (Leccardi 2015, 44)

The employment situation of young people, and their increasing experiences of precar-
iousness, has been the focus of much theorising surrounding what it means to be a
1222 K. D. BONE

young person today and how this relates to conceptions of identity and cultural ideals of
timing. The current article addresses these concerns through a temporal analysis of the
experiences of young academics working under ongoing precarious conditions in
Australia.

Trajectories and anticipated futures: A challenge for young people

Prominent youth studies scholars in Australia have identified, through significant longi-
tudinal research embedded within the Australian context, that the employment situations
and lifestyles of young Australians has changed considerably across generations (Crofts
et al. 2015; Cuervo and Wyn 2014; Woodman and Wyn 2013, 2015). From this research,
Wyn (2009, 2) has conceptualised an emergent ‘new adulthood’ which proposes that
‘the period of youth has become an “extended” phase of life, before eventually settling
into the traditional, or perhaps expected, pattern of “adult” life: secure job, marriage, chil-
dren and buying one’s own home’. Markers of ‘transition’ typically include: leaving home,
finishing education, being employed full-time, marrying, becoming a parent, and purchas-
ing a home (Harvey et al. 2018).
The concept of a transition phase and dichotomies between ‘youth’ and ‘adulthood’
have been critiqued (Cuervo and Wyn 2014; Furlong and Kelly 2005; Furlong,
Woodman, and Wyn 2011; Wyn 2006, 2009, 2011, 2014). It is acknowledged that there
are broader structural challenges affecting these transitions when, for example, young
people are made to be dependent on others as they are often unable to find work
which affects their ability to move out of home, buy a house, and generally be self-
sufficient and engaged citizens (Foundation of Young Australians 2013). It has been
argued that as a result of some of the structural challenges facing young people there
has been a ‘systemic proletarianisation of the entire youth population in many countries,
raising again materialist concerns and the issue of youth-as-class’ (Côté 2014, 527). Côté
(2014, 527) theorises a ‘revival of the political-economy-of-youth perspective’ by demon-
strating certain class relations between youth and adults such as young peoples’ reduced
earning power and education-to-work prospects.
In acknowledging structural challenges facing young people, and generational differ-
ences that reflect these, Wyn (2006, 237) critiques assumptions and generalisations that
youth are ‘failing’ to make transitions into adulthood and rather argues that ‘young
people are engaging with adult responsibilities and experiences incrementally, early in
their lives’. The ‘traditional temporal order’ (Leccardi 2015, 46) within which young
people experience certain life stages has become de-synchronised and de-standardised
(Leccardi 2017). This conception of ‘new adulthood’ stems from research findings that
younger generations (commonly referred to as generations X or Y or ‘millennials’) tend to
expect an unstable pathway through the job market and as a result strive to be flexible
and mobile so that they may build meaning in life through personal relationships instead
of reliance on an insecure career or occupation (Crofts et al. 2015). These researchers high-
light the experiential lives of their participants and are careful not to stigmatise young
people and as such they resist a ‘youth transition’ perspective; one which they argue
denotes ‘a narrative of deficit (delayed transitions) as the connections between education
and employment inevitably take a long time to become firm’ (Cuervo and Wyn 2014, 912–
913).
 JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 1223

Côté (2014) critiques some of the ideas presented by Wyn and Woodman (2006),
arguing that a focus on subjectivities can ‘normalise exploitive situations’ (Côté 2014,
538). These competing dominant perspectives in the international youth studies literature
offer a valuable insight into the complexities of the current situation for young people.
Woodman and Wyn (2015) have defended their position in the face of these criticisms
and maintain:
… social change and new risks are not facades behind which more real, and longstanding,
forms of inequality are hidden, but are central to the way inequalities, including but not
only by class, gender and race, are made in the conditions facing emerging generations of
young people. (1402)

This contention suggests that structural aspects of contemporary social life contribute to the
emergence and maintenance of new and old forms of inequality which affect young people
who disproportionately experience precarious working and living conditions (Chomsky
2011). A recent report comprising of reputable large-scale survey findings (Brotherhood
of St Laurence 2017, 1), showed that young people aged 15–24 years old in Australia can
be considered a ‘generation stalled’ as 13.5% are unemployed, a further 18% are underem-
ployed and 39.3% occupy casual jobs (this figure excludes students who might combine
study with work). Higher education graduates have experienced a 17.1% increase in part-
time employment between 2008 and 2017, an indicator of increasing underemployment.
There is a lack of data related to the number of graduates who collect Centrelink welfare
benefits after completing their degree, but it is argued by Biggart and Walther (2006, 41)
that young adults experience ‘yo-yo transitions’ marked by ‘states of semi-dependency’ (orig-
inal italics), including uncertain economic in/dependence.
The current article contributes to a growing literature base surrounding young peoples’
experiences of precarious employment arrangements and fluid lifestyles. In this article, it is
argued that the present time, marked by fluidity and change, continually cuts into the
future as ‘events in the here-and-now never exist in isolation, but rather are embedded
within an individual and social timescape’ (Bailey and Madden 2017, 6). Consequently, con-
ceptions of the changing landscape of inequalities, and precarious employment as an
example of this, are extended to encompass aspects of lived experience that include the
future implications of precarious conditions for workers. Even if the future appears uncer-
tain and out of reach, actions and events in the present influence the future; the relation-
ship between present and future creates complex self-referential patterns (Luhmann 1976,
145). While difficult to grasp, it is necessary to consider not only the current existing situ-
ation but the long-term implications of precariousness encompassing future timespans
and the merging of the present and future (Adam 2010). Even if the distant future is rela-
tively unknown, the present is always merging with the future due to the ‘asymmetry’ of
time (Bailey and Madden 2017, 6). For young people, often conceived of as being on a
path towards adult life, considerations of the present-future relationship are significant.

Materials and methods

Qualitative data were collected from young academics in fixed-term or casual employment
positions at a large Australian University. To gain rich and situated accounts of how young
people experience life as precarious workers, ten participants were interviewed three
1224 K. D. BONE

times over the course of a year. A total of 30 in-depth semi-structured interviews, with each
interview building upon the last, informed understanding of the ongoing experience of
precarious employment for participants (Flyvbjerg 2011; Stake 2006). This multiple inter-
viewing technique was used to capture temporal referent points associated with lived
experience and to track change across time. In the presentation of findings, the number
behind each participant’s name refers to the interview sequence, for example, Ruby2
signifies that the quote was taken from Ruby’s second interview.
Each follow-up interview provided participants with an opportunity to comment on
their recent experiences and any changes that had occurred in their work or personal
lives. Follow-up questions and member checking comprised an important feature of the
interviews (Savin-Baden and Major 2013, 366). Recurring interviews with each participant
allowed time to check my understanding of what participants meant, and at points share
some of my analysis, to increase rigour and trustworthiness across data collection and
analysis phases (Denzin 2017). Multiple thematic analysis methods were utilised to
uncover core themes (Guest, MacQueen, and Namey 2012; Savin-Baden and Major
2013; Stake 2006). The voices of participants were used to formulate critical understand-
ings of lived experience (Denzin 2017). Any form of checklist proposed to guide the quali-
tative research method of analysis was resisted (Denzin 2017) and a transparent,
collaborative approach applied instead. University Ethics Approval was granted for the
study, participation was voluntary and pseudonyms used.

Selection of cases
A pre-participation screening tool was utilised to gauge the suitability of each participant
to be included in the study (Stake 2006). Suitability was assessed based on some essential
criteria such as age, employment contract type, job role, and willingness to commit to mul-
tiple interviews. A total of five males and five females fitting the inclusion criteria were
included and these participants were ‘categorically bound together’ (Stake 2006, 6) by
their age (all 30 years old or under) and employment status (all on casual or fixed-term
employment contracts at the University). Participants worked in various Faculties and
roles at the University, encompassing teaching and/or research positions.

Young participants
The case studies are young academics who were able to contribute to understandings of a
situated experience of precarious work through their willingness to be involved in the
study over time and openly discuss their work and personal lives. In this article, the
word ‘young’ refers to academics aged 30 or under. Youth to adulthood transitions are
often incremental, rather than distinct, resulting in unclear divisions between these categ-
orisations (United Nations 2014; Wyn 2009, 2014). Markers of adulthood are changing and
there is a tension between doing things earlier but also entering the world with debt and
thus being held in a state of dependence (Foundation for Young Australians 2013). The
reason for extending the definition of ‘young’ in this research, to include those aged up
to 30 years, reflects the fluidity of definitions of youth and also recognises the years of
study required to gain postgraduate qualifications which are usually a prerequisite for aca-
demic employment. Precarious academic employees do tend to be younger than their
 JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 1225

permanent colleagues, but their median age is 36 years showing that young academics
working in the higher education sector are older in comparison to other industries
(May, Peetz, and Strachan 2013, 262).

Context
The setting for this research was a high ranked research-intensive University in Australia. In
line with other similar countries (such as New Zealand, England and America), Australian
universities heavily rely on a precarious workforce (American Association of University Pro-
fessors 2015; Bentley, McLeod, and Teo 2014; Evans 2016; Higher Education Statistics
Agency 2014). Academic contract types in Australia can typically be divided into three
groups: tenured, fixed-term, and casual (Andrews et al. 2016; Jamieson 2014; May,
Peetz, and Strachan 2013). Barely one third of employees working in the Australian
higher education sector enjoy the benefits of permanent/tenured employment (Evans
2016) and the way that casual workers are used across the sector to perform their
central function (teaching) has been called a ‘national disgrace’ (Long 2018, para. 4).
The benefits associated with tenure include full leave entitlements (such as sick,
holiday, and maternity leave) and a high superannuation rate of 17%, which is an employer
contribution to an employees’ retirement fund scheme. Fixed-term academics are
afforded similar benefits to tenured employees but their contracts have an end date,
beyond which they receive no entitlements. Their superannuation rate ranges between
9.5% and 17%. In the case of this research, fixed-term participants had either 12
months or three-year contracts. In Australia, employees who work on a casual basis are
paid an hourly rate with a 25% extra ‘casual loading’ (Fair Work Ombudsman 2016a)
applied in recognition that they are not afforded leave entitlements or other security
benefits (Fair Work Ombudsman 2016b). Casual academic employees typically receive
the minimum superannuation rate of 9.5%, but this is only paid by an employer when
earnings for a calendar month exceed $450AUD (Australian Taxation Office 2018) which
might not always be the case given casual workers often experience variable hours. The
marked differentiation between benefits and security associated with tenured, fixed-
term and casual employment at the university adds to the complexity of precarious
employment as discussed in the findings. While this study was conducted within one
high-ranked University, the use of casual and fixed-term staff blights the sector as a
whole. Long (2018, para 3), the Victorian secretary of the National Tertiary Education
Union, states that the big majority of Australian universities have rates of casual and
fixed-term employment that in combination exceeds 50%, with many exceeding 70%.
The findings presented next highlight the real effects of precarious employment practices
through an examination of the lived experiences of young academics.

Findings
The findings presented in this section highlight challenges that emerge from precarious
work conditions which restrict certain lifestyle options. All participants reported feeling
unable to plan for their future which restricted their capacity to live what they considered
to be normal, settled lives. The findings illustrate that ‘planning no longer appears to be a
reasonable antidote to the lack of existential security’ experienced by young people,
1226 K. D. BONE

because plans are difficult to realise in the current social climate (Leccardi 2017, 354).
Nevertheless, as other studies of young Australians have shown, the participants were
‘conscious and purposeful’ in their thoughts about experiencing ‘adult status passages’
(McDonald et al. 2011, 77) and narratives of planning were important for their conceptu-
alisations of the future. In the presentation of findings, particular emphasis is placed on the
participants’ family plans and living arrangements. Central to the discussion is how precar-
ious work relates to precarious lives and the way in which precariousness can extend into
the future.

Being uncertain
The participants in this study desired stability in their employment as they strived towards
feeling in control of their futures. Permanent employment was seen to provide opportu-
nities for stability that would enable other aspects of their lives to flourish. The following
quotes exemplify the sentiment shared among participants:
Yes, the major thing with that [permanent employment] is just having that peace of mind that
you can actually sit down and make plans and do things that commit you for the future,
without having to sit there and go well in two years I might be unemployed and I might
not get another job for a year in that time and what do I do in that case? (Logan2)

… it seems very stressful, not knowing where you’re going to go, or even what country you’ll
be able to live in. (Olivia1)

… there’s a point at which you are willing to sacrifice some income for greater security.
(Ruby2)

It’s just nice to know that you have got a job into the future. (Mike2)

It is not what we [young precarious academics] want to be doing, we would rather be settled
somewhere. (Jasmine1)

These quotes demonstrate how participants conceptualised their present situation and
the restrictions they felt emerged as a result of being precariously employed. Logan
referred to a desire to ‘sit down and make plans’ for personal life goals that he said
could ‘commit you for the future’ (Logan2). Job security was a top priority for all partici-
pants because it affected so many facets of their lives.
Precarious employment was viewed by participants as a blocker to their self-determi-
nacy, independence, and feelings of stability. As a result, there was a consensus among
participants that they could not withstand precarious employment beyond another one
to two years. For the participants, many desires (such as having children) were firmly
placed in the future so precarious work was seen as acceptable in the short-term, but
not a long-term option: ‘ … once I am getting to a point in my life where I want a bit
more stability, I want a bit more stability in my job as well. I want those to be options’
(Max1). ‘Options’ were seen to be essential for the participants so that they were able
to achieve a sense of agency over the direction of their lives.
The participants were realistic about the risky realities of long-term precarious work
engagement. Their vulnerable position as precarious workers hindered feelings of
being able to commit responsibly to a mortgage, lease, or children. Logan pointed
this out when he said, ‘once you have got a family or you know once you have
 JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 1227

bought a house or something like that, it is not easy to just go sorry I can’t do that
anymore I haven’t got a job’ (Logan3). The thought of investing in relationships,
making community connections, or taking on long-term commitments, sometimes felt
like an irresponsible (or pointless) pursuit given that participants often saw themselves
as living transient lives. The following paragraphs highlight their struggles to achieve cul-
turally expected milestones.

Being an ‘adult child’

Jasmine’s struggle with leaving home highlighted the effects of precarious employment
on her wellbeing as a young woman striving for independence and ‘adult’ status.
Jasmine was the only participant who still lived at home with her parents during data col-
lection for this research. She desperately wanted to move out of home but felt too finan-
cially insecure. Jasmine had been reliant on Centrelink (welfare payments) when she
experienced gaps in academic employment between semesters.
It is a major financial benefit to universities that casual teaching staff are not paid
between semesters which means casual employees, like Jasmine, can experience up to
four months without pay over the semester breaks. Casually employed participants in
this research had to live off their savings, seek alternate employment (often outside the
university), or gain welfare benefits to support them through these intermittent periods
of unemployment.
Under such conditions, Jasmine felt unable to support herself out of her parents’ house.
However, the increased financial and housing security provided by living with her parents
came at a personal cost as Jasmine felt financially dependent on others and saw herself as
remaining in what she described as a child-like state. Jasmine felt that living with her parents
represented ‘being like an adult child’ (Jasmine3). Jasmine’s dependent living arrangement
infantilised her as she felt inadequate and stuck in a childish timeframe (Adam 1995).
Jasmine’s position as a university employee heightened these feelings as her contact
with young students increased Jasmine’s awareness that she had not achieved a milestone
she considered ‘normal’ or expected for people her age:
… the idea that they [my students] have achieved a milestone in life that I haven’t, the moving
out of home, doing all that kind of stuff, sort of, I don’t know why it is such a big problem for
me but it is. (Jasmine3)

Jasmine experienced a disjuncture between what she thought she would be doing and
wanted to do at her age, in comparison to the reality of her life. Leccardi (2015, 43)
notes that biographical time is closely linked to social-temporal norms that ‘determine
and define the various life-stages from childhood to old age, set them in relation to
each other, condition the transitions among them, and above all construct their meanings’.
In Australia, living at home with parents at Jasmine’s age of 30 is not the norm. The
emotional impact of this situation for Jasmine was that it made her critical of herself; inter-
nalising feelings of being incapable and child-like. Living with her parents also limited Jas-
mine’s sex-life as she said if she ‘brought a guy back home’ then her parents would meet
him; a scenario that she said ‘kills that’ romantic experience (Jasmine3). As such, she was
not in a romantic relationship and nor could she see one developing under her current
housing arrangements.
1228 K. D. BONE

Jasmine was noticeably upset when talking about her whole experience of living at
home and feeling unable to move out and move on. Her parents were supportive, but
she was not where she wanted to be in life. Jasmine struggled to reconcile her real situ-
ation (living at home, dependent, in precarious employment) with her imagined ideal
(full-time employed academic, independent). The imagined ideal aligned with cultural
norms associated with adulthood in Australian society (Wieland 2010).

Being a vagrant
Other participants also felt limited in regards to their conceptions of becoming an ‘adult’.
Logan articulated this:
All those big adult decisions that you’re supposed to make at some stage, I feel like they kind of
get deferred for anyone who’s on an academic pathway. They’re not really options any more …
It worries me a little bit. Probably up until a couple of years ago I wouldn’t have been particularly
worried, but I mean … yes, it worries me that, things are going to disappear, opportunities are
going to disappear. I don’t really want to be a vagrant for the rest of my life. (Logan1)

Logan emphasised the stage of his life as the primary reason for wanting more secure
employment again in the second interview when he said ‘ … hey, I’m 29, it would be
nice to settle down at some stage and have a family and, you know, all that sort of
thing’ (Logan2). He described wanting to ‘invest’ a lot more in setting up his life and
this included living in Melbourne long-term, as well as making other ‘time investments,
effort investments’ such as joining sports clubs, adopting a pet and making friends
(Logan2). As somebody who had been working precariously for a number of years,
Logan was becoming increasingly tired of his perceived ‘vagrant’ status (Logan1). A
vagrant is defined as a person ‘without a settled home or regular work who wanders
from place to place and lives by begging’ (Oxford Dictionaries 2017, np). Logan feared
that he might get ‘too old’ to achieve his goals, or lose a sense of ‘belonging’ to where
he lived, if he kept pursuing an academic career as he perceived that his precarious
employment status required him to constantly move around following work. There are
clearly negative implications of being a ‘vagrant’, including feeling unsettled, lowly, and
dependent on others.

Being responsible
Children were a future consideration referred to in the interviews. None of the partici-
pants had children but both male and female participants were mindful that their
employment contracts offered little or no parental leave benefits/ongoing parental
support. Ruby calculated her income very specifically (providing detailed sums in her
interview) and explained that she simply could not afford to have children in her
present situation:
… as a woman there is the maternity leave consideration … even if I wanted to just take you
know, even just six weeks off to literally be in hospital, have a baby, whatever, I can’t do that.
So that isn’t even being offered … It’s like, yes, I actually can’t live, you know, I cannot afford
my rent if I do that, yes. (Ruby2)

Participants were aware of the risks involved in being precariously employed workers, with
no guarantee that they would be financially supported through employment. Jasmine said
 JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 1229

‘there is no way’ she could have children because ‘there is no way I could afford to go for a
year and not apply for casual contracts’ (Jasmine2).
Mia pointed out that even fixed-term contracts have their end date and she perceived
that it would be difficult to find another position if she were to start a family, even though
pregnancy discrimination is illegal (Australian Human Rights Commission 2016). Mia
implied employers would find it off-putting to hire a pregnant woman because they
would know that maternity leave would be taken. She explained:
Let’s say some accident happened and I got pregnant and my contract ended … the prospect
of trying to find a job when, like a new job, if you were pregnant and needed maternity leave,
or whatever, like I just don’t, I don’t have confidence in that happening. So even though that’s
not my situation, that’s the kind of thing that makes me feel nervous about having like an end
date with nothing afterwards. (Mia3)

Participants described having children as an issue of good or bad ‘timing’ (Adam 1995,
21). Leccardi (2012, 67) explains that women often find themselves ‘deprived of the
possibility of synchronising their social clock, ever more accelerated in accordance
with the increase in the velocity of collective rhythms, and their biological clock,
anchored to the rhythms of the body’. There was a consensus among participants
that it would be bad timing to have children while being precariously employed.
Mia’s wording that pregnancy would be an ‘accident’ highlights the drastic effects of
not having access to paid leave entitlements like maternity leave.
Other research has found that every year a woman spends in casual employment
reduces her likelihood of childbirth by around age 35 (Steele et al. 2013). Steele et al.
(2013) found that irrespective of socioeconomic status, partner’s education, and
parents’ birthplace, women’s’ likelihood of childbirth was ‘reduced by 8, 23 and 35%
for 1, 3 and 5 years spent in casual employment, respectively’ (155). This is a worrying
finding when considering that the participants of the current study felt so restricted in
their ability to commit to family life, suggesting their precarious employment status
was actively interfering with reproductive choices. Logan clearly stated the sentiment
shared by participants when he said ‘ … it’s not a good situation for raising a family or
having other commitments like that so that’s the main reason I would be concerned
about contract work’ (Logan2). These marred imaginings of what would happen if
they had children certainly affected participants’ present decisions. The visualised
effects of a future of precarious work prohibited positive feelings towards committing
to the responsibility of parenthood.

Being enabled
Participants saw that the only way they might be able to make important commitments,
like home ownership or starting a family, was if they had the support of a partner who
could cushion their precarious situation. Jasmine observed this situation occurring
among some of her friends:
I have seen other women who have had kids while working year to year contracts and it is only
because their partner has very stable work that they are able to do that. (Jasmine2)

Max also described the level of dependency that precarious work imposes on the lives of
workers who have to rely on others for security. He said:
1230 K. D. BONE

You would only apply for a home loan if you partner has a secure job, you would only have
kids if your partner has a secure job, because there is no guarantee that you are going to
keep getting work … . (Max1)

While partners could enable certain events, the participants wanted to have options to
make important life decisions without being dependent on another person. Max continued
‘I want it to be my choice, to have a home or not have a home, to have kids or not have kids. I
don’t want it to be imposed on me by my job or anything else really’ (Max1). The feeling that
precarious employment was an imposition on available lifestyle choices showed how pre-
carity could creep into all corners of the participants’ lives (Campbell and Price 2016).
Existent literature has shown how precarious workers can be buffered against the nega-
tive effects of insecure work when they have access to alternate forms of financial and social
support (Antonucci 2018; Buchtemann and Quack 1990). In such cases these workers might
be referred to as ‘contented casuals’ (Moss, White, and McGann 2011, 80), ‘deliberate
casuals’ (Keuskamp et al. 2013) or workers in ‘sustainable, less permanent employment’
(Lewchuk, Clarke, and de Wolff 2011, 185). Taking into account contextual elements that
affected the precariousness of young people, it was noticeable how enabled participants
were when they had the support of a partner in full-time, permanent employment. This
was particularly evident in discussions of home ownership. Tanya was the only home
owner at the time of first interview. By the time of the third round of interviewing Mike
and Ruby had also bought homes with their partners. These three participants were the
only married participants, all were on fixed-term (as opposed to casual) contracts, and
Mike and Tanya had partners in secure full-time employment. Ruby’s situation was
different to Tanya and Mike’s because Ruby’s husband also worked precariously. Ruby
described the stress associated with the house buying process because of their combined
level of financial insecurity which heighted her awareness of the vulnerability of precarious
workers. As the interview rounds progressed, she became increasingly critical of her pos-
ition and had decided to put a time-limit on her engagement with precarious employment
at the University.
Hofmann (2018, 29) observes that many precarious academics maintain their jobs
because of the support and benefits associated with being in an intimate relationship
with somebody ‘better-off’ suggesting that ‘precarious academics rely on sexual-economic
strategies of survival … ’. Logan’s thoughts about his life as a ‘vagrant’ were compounded
by the fact that, far from his partner being the better-off one in the relationship protecting
him from precarity, Logan was actually financially supporting his partner who was study-
ing (a potentially more precarious position than being in fixed-term employment). This
situation not only added extra financial pressure but also increased Logan’s sense of
angst for the future as he imagined them both negotiating precarious academic work
after his partner finished her studies. If all precarious workers had a ‘better-off’
(Hofmann 2018, 29) partner to make up for the financial and emotional insecurity associ-
ated with their work, experiences of precarity may reduce but dependency on another
person is a problematic solution and unstable strategy in its own right.

Discussion
The close links between precarious employment and reduced lifestyle choices were
reinforced over and again through the multiple interviews and as time passed by the
 JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 1231

effects of this situation became more tiresome. Participants experienced precarious work
as a blocker to their capacity to become independent people who could fulfil their life
goals and ambitions. Many of these plans were associated with participants’ ideals sur-
rounding becoming an adult. Although a ‘narrative of deficit’ (Cuervo and Wyn 2014,
912) should be avoided by researchers, the findings show that participants themselves
engaged with this narrative as they internalised social expectations. Participants con-
sidered their ‘possible selves’ by acknowledging their ‘hopes, fears, goals, and threats’
(Markus and Nurius 1986, 954). In this process, participants were critical of their perceived
lack of self-sufficiency and self-determinacy as they considered their possible selves to be
held back by their current employment status. Participants engaged with ideas surround-
ing ‘possible selves’ which provided an ‘evaluative and interpretive context for the current
view of self’ (Markus and Nurius 1986, 954). On occasions this self-reflexivity resulted in
internalised self-critique as participants described themselves as somewhat lacking,
such as Jasmine considering herself to be an ‘adult-child’ and Logan who described
himself as a ‘vagrant’ worried his lifestyle opportunities were going to ‘disappear’.
The findings reflect the importance of temporality, highlighting how ‘the past, present
and future get joined up with life stages’ (Adam 1995, 6). Given their understanding that
long term future plans require solidarity and commitment, the participants experienced
an ongoing sense of being limited in their abilities to move into their anticipated futures.
Participants experienced the effects of liquid modernity as their lives were dictated by uncer-
tainty resulting in divergent and ambiguous career trajectories and lifestyles. In liquid mod-
ernity, the future is never predictable as ‘ … we don’t have a clear image of a “destination”
towards which we seem to be moving … Instead, we react to the latest trouble, experiment-
ing, groping in the dark’ (Bauman 2011, vii-iii). As precariousness now regularly features in
the life-course trajectories of young people it is important to understand that precarity
becomes embedded within their lifestyles. In this situation ‘young people “navigate by
sight”, dealing with uncertainty, rather than following pre-established routes’ (Leccardi
2015, 41). The findings show how precarious work interfered with the capacity of partici-
pants to accomplish anticipated futures as they perceived a lack of power in being able
to control and plan their lives with any degree of reliability, which rendered them stuck
in the present. The perpetual fluidity that characterised their precarious employment
meant they had nothing to hold onto, nothing to bind their time (Bauman 1999).
Luhmann (1976, 135) defines time as ‘the interpretation of reality with regard to the differ-
ence between past and future’ which presupposes that ‘daily life gives the experience of
change and contains in itself the point of departure for its own “timing”’. Part of this experi-
ence of timing for participants was shown in their desire to be able to choose ‘when’ it was
time for them to do certain things (Adam 1995, 21). Ultimately participants wanted to feel
that they would be able to occupy the futures they imagined, when they imagined. Under pre-
carious conditions workers are forced to contemplate how they are conducting their lives and
what that means in a dynamic world. This is an important issue for young people who are in
the stage of life where uncertainty is known to negatively impact upon their ability to ‘estab-
lish the stability that underpins marriage and childbearing commitments’ and also realise their
‘hopes and dreams’ (Wyn and Andres 2011, 21). As Woodman (2011, 112) explains, ‘Social
action becomes unstable and contingent as day-to-day life is dismantled increasingly regu-
larly and rapidly. In this world, people feel unanchored in time’. The findings presented
earlier demonstrate that precarious employment heightens participants feelings of being
1232 K. D. BONE

unanchored in time, which has significant impact for young workers. The effects of precarious
employment therefore temporally extended far beyond the present timeframe, resulting in
the emergence of a ‘continuous present’.

Conceptualising a ‘continuous present’

The ‘continuous present’ is an important theoretical concept derived from this research.
Young precarious workers are forced to inhabit a ‘continuous present’ where the future is
deferred. The lack of control that participants expressed in being able to choose their
employment contract types, and therefore make plans for their futures, meant they were
often excluded from decision making about their future. Rosa (2015, 146) argues that
when the future is ‘unforeseeable and uncontrollable, ‘situational’ or present-oriented pat-
terns of identity dominate’. This lack of ability to control the future, and realise a desired
change in circumstance, meant that as time progressed for the participants their career-
paths and lifestyles were constructed for them, rather than by them. As Bauman (2012,
137) claims, ‘The less hold one has on the present, the less of the “future” can be embraced
in the design’. The lack of control voiced by participants, in terms of their ability to live out
their lives how they wished and realise their future goals, meant that their present situations
became drawn-out and in this way the present became the dominant temporal zone.
Participants were kept in a ‘continuous present’ in their personal lives as they deferred
starting a family, felt limited in their available living arrangements and lacked the feelings
of security they felt were required to make commitments. Time kept on ticking for the par-
ticipants, as they invested in their careers and deferred certain life events. Luhmann (1976,
40) refers to time metaphorically as a ‘horizon’ and points out that ‘the essential charac-
teristic of a horizon is that we can never touch it, never get at it, never surpass it, but
that in spite of that, it contributes to the definition of the situation’. Precariousness
crept into the lives of participants as their idealised futures were halted and their
present situation was extended and defined by their ongoing engagement with precar-
ious work. As each contract rolled over to the next, or another casual contract was
signed, the participants’ lives continued, but often not in the way they intended. Far
from experiencing accelerated change (Leccardi 2012; Rosa 2015), participants found
themselves stuck in the present, ‘putting their personal lives “on hold” until they found
more permanent employment’ (Lewchuk, Clarke, and de Wolff 2011, 202). Leccardi
(2012, 64) claims that the acceleration of social time ‘“burns up” the dimension of the
future. The future folds back into the present, it is absorbed within it and is consumed
before it can really be conceived’. In my theorisation of a ‘continuous present’ I argue
that the future was conceived by participants, but this desirable future was kept persist-
ently out of reach due to prolonged engagement with precarious employment. Instead
of the future folding back into the present, the future conceived by participants was
never realised so the present became the only temporal zone. Precarious employment
is often considered to be defined by its temporary, short-term, and unstable nature. In
the case of this research, participants experienced temporary and short-term employment
contracts but their overall situation was defined by relatively stable, static and drawn-out
engagement with precarious work.
In their idealised futures participants imagined a secure career trajectory, having chil-
dren, investing in romantic relationships, moving out of home, home ownership, joining
 JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 1233

sports clubs and adopting pets. These aspirations were not the consequence of privilege,
but rather reflect normalised social expectations of young people in Australia within the
current ‘historical moment’ (Leccardi 2015, 43). Lewchuk, Clarke, and de Wolff (2011,
203) describe how precarious workers are often ‘depleting their own resources and thus
compromising their long-term health and well-being’. Precarious academics are required
to ‘work hard, efficiently and in a disciplined manner’ (Ylijoki 2010, 379). Self-discipline and
compromises of health and wellbeing were certainly observed in the data as the young
precariously employed participants inhabited a ‘continuous present’; striving, coping,
and adapting to circumstance.
The focus here on young academics highlights that precariousness can be experienced as
limiting and impactful for young people forging their career paths, even in more privileged
professions. The findings also illustrate that while there are differences between casual and
fixed-term employment experiences, all participants felt that their engagement with precar-
ious work acted as a serious limitation in relation to their career goals and lifestyle options.
The participants’ hopes towards transitioning to permanent employment acted as a mechan-
ism through which they could cope with precarious employment and justify the continual
delaying of other important aspects of their personal lives (Acker and Webber 2017;
Hofmann 2018; Kalfa, Wilkinson, and Gollan 2017; Ylijoki 2010). Nowotny’s (1994, 52) theoris-
ation of an ‘extended present’ reflects the way in which present actions, intentions and plans
are thought to generate the future; becoming an obsession with ideas of progress in the
present. In this way, ‘the development of the orientation connected with the future and of
the ideology of progress leads to their disappearance … ’ which breaks down ‘the entire
time horizon’ (Nowotny 1994, 193). In another article, I will present the future-orientations
devised by participants in relation to the manifestation of hope, and functionality of coping,
within precarious academic employment. The discussion of the current article has demon-
strated that the participants experienced an intense inability to plan their lives due to an
inability to plan their careers. In terms of the ‘continuous present’, they were always becoming.

Limitations and future research

While data collection occurred at multiple points across a year, and the lives of participants
traced during this time, it would greatly assist in understanding the longer-term temporal
effects of precarious employment to conduct a longitudinal study spanning multiple years.
The current research presents the situation of participants during one year, highlighting
their feelings of limitation and also their ideal imagined futures. The impact of these
findings would be increased and extended if participants were tracked for a longer
period to examine whether their dreams and goals were eventually realised, and how
long they experienced the ‘continuous present’.

Recommendation
This research calls for universities to give serious consideration to how young academics
could be better supported in their career pathways to mitigate against obstructing the
dreams and ambitions of these young dedicated workers. It is suggested that offering
clear academic career pathways and transitions to permanent employment would be
more socially responsible than current practices, and would support employees’
1234 K. D. BONE

broader lives. Young academics would appreciate gaining knowledge of career opportu-
nities and advancement strategies within the academic profession to achieve their goals of
tenure within desired timeframes. This information would offer transparency in terms of
the realities of achieving a tenured academic position. Structured career pathways
would certainly enable employees to make more informed choices about their careers
and lives.

Conclusion
This article makes a clear temporal contribution to scholarly research about how young
people involved in precarious employment are affected by this all-encompassing experi-
ence. The findings emphasise that multiple spheres of their lives, both in the present and
the future, are affected by insecurity. A temporal link is therefore made between precar-
ious work and precarious lives (Campbell and Price 2016). The main contribution of this
article rests in the analytically derived conception of the ‘continuous present’, a construct
which assists in examining how present and future collide when people feel limited in their
capacity to experience anticipated progression in their work and personal lives. This pro-
gression includes the ability to realise a self-determined future that involves the opportu-
nity to responsibly commit to having children, romantic relationships, and independent
living arrangements. The analysis extends current conceptions of the effects of precarious
employment to show that precarity is something that develops over time, and affects both
casual and fixed-term workers. The focus on academics shows that all young people,
including those who are relatively privileged with high educational achievement and
experience within a prestigious profession, can be negatively influenced by precarious
employment. This reflects a concern given the growing uncertainty prevalent in a time
of liquid modernity. The analytically derived ‘continuous present’ illustrates how precar-
ious employment is sustained, even by individuals who are negatively affected by it, as
time passes by and focus is maintained on a future that never seems to eventuate.

Acknowledgements
The author was supported to undertake this research, and publish key findings, by being the recipi-
ent of the following scholarships while studying and working at Monash University, Melbourne, Aus-
tralia: John Lane Memorial Scholarship, Australian Postgraduate Award, and the Monash
Postgraduate Publication Award. Many thanks to Professor Gavin Jack and Dr Susan Mayson for pro-
viding excellent PhD supervision which strengthened this research. I would also like to thank the
reviewers for their engagement with this article and useful literature suggestions.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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