Reconceptualizing Heterogeneity and Precarity in Youth Disconnection: Novel Analysis from the NLSY97

Background & Purpose: An agenda has emerged for a population of transition-age young people: “disconnected youth”. This population is now consistently defined as those aged 16-24 who are not in enrolled in school nor employed. While The Great Recession facilitated this framing, the fields of child welfare and juvenile justice also contributed to and benefit from a focus on connections to school and work for youth aging out of these institutions. Yet in efforts to frame this population’s deservingness, a binary construction of disconnection has been established. Given this consensus, I ask the following questions: What is the relationships between structural disadvantage and measures of disconnection? Does disconnection operate as a binary among transition-age youth in the United States? What patterns can be observed by using novel measures of disconnection?

Methods: Data and Sample: I utilize data from the 2003-04 wave of the NLSY97—a biannual survey administered to a nationally representative sample of children born in the United States in 1980-1984 with an over-sample of African-Americana and Latinos. My sample includes 8,354 young adults aged 20-24. I explore the relationship between significant correlates and young adults’ disconnection.

Measures (constructing a measure of weeks-per-year disconnected): In order to analyze patterns of disconnection, I contribute a novel method utilizing the weekly time-map feature within the survey combined with quarterly employment and education reporting. In doing so, I generate an annual measure of weeks disconnected (0-52) as an outcome. Then, I utilize GLM and a Poisson Log-link function to estimate the effects of SES, race, region, high school degree attainment and mother’s education on weeks disconnected.

Results: Family SES has a positive and significant relationship of weeks disconnected—even among high school graduates. As SES increases one standard deviation, the reduction in weeks disconnected per-year is approximately 33 percent. Once accounting for other relevant variables, the effects of SES are even stronger. In 2004, among 20-24-year-olds, one standard deviation increase in SES reduces almost 50 percent of one’s weeks disconnected from work and school (47 percent). Most importantly, by SES quartile, there are significant differences. Among high school graduates, the lowest-SES quartile is disconnected more than 2.5 times as many weeks-per-year as those in the highest-SES quartile.

Conclusions & Implications: I contribute evidence from a nationally-representative sample that disconnection from work and school is a more complicated construct. Additionally, I find family SES is a significant predictor of weeks disconnected per-year during emerging adulthood. This study points to patterned increases in weeks-disconnected per-year among lower-SES young people and an underlying precarity of connection to work and school among this same group. This heterogeneity and precarity creates significant opportunity for social workers, as a significant proportion of lower-SES young adults successfully enroll or gain employment yet need supports to sustain stable connection. This also points to larger structural dynamics and enables advocacy for family income-support policies as a prevention to disconnection.