Abstract:

The transition to work represents one of the most important challenges for the higher education young graduates. Finding a job has effective implications in the process of entering adulthood and being able to do it during or after the period of the Covid-19 pandemic implies unprecedented challenges.

In Portugal, obtaining higher education continues to play a decisive role in reducing the country's structural geographic/social dichotomies and representing the main instrument of social modernization and promotion of upward social mobility. However, despite the evolution felt over the last decades in terms of the number of higher education students, scientific research continues to show that a direct relationship between family social contexts and academic/professional trajectories persists.

We intend to analyze the process of transition to work, the professional trajectories, the working conditions and the professional expectations of a non-representative sample of 195 higher education young graduates from three institutions located in the center of Portugal.

The results show that having a higher education degree and a regular job did not change the process of transition to adulthood for most of the young graduates, and more than half of those, up to the age of 30, assumed that they continue to live with their parents and maintain the same job, located in their residence area. These conditions indirectly reflects precarious working conditions in terms of contract/remuneration and, sometimes, an underrated job with vertical mismatch and low level of required skills.

Age proves to be an important variable in this process, with the older graduates (+30) having better working conditions, supported in a professional career already established even before obtaining their degree.

Globally, the expectations of younger graduates regarding their professional future, are, despite all, positive, even though they are aware that this post-pandemic era will involve greater risks and difficulties in relation to the labor market, including: increased unemployment, temporary and precarious work, decreased wages and economic growth, and increased emigration.

Keywords:

Transition to work, precariousness, youth, skills, job expectations.