Working Students and Precarious Employment: A Latent Profile Analysis

Combining work and study is challenging for most students, especially when they are in more precarious work contexts. Identifying which students struggle with this would better inform interventions and advance theory. Using a sample of working tertiary students (N = 415) and a person-centered research approach (latent profile analysis), we identified five different sub-groups of students based on indicators of precarious employment– high precariousness (7.3%), inflexible with poor conditions (25.0%), average (27.4%), flexible (14.3%), and low precariousness (26.0%). These subgroups differed on study, career development, mental health, and biographic factors. The high precariousness group reported more need for recovery from work and lower study engagement, career agency, wellbeing, subjective social status, and financial comfort compared to the low precariousness group. Implications for educators and employers, as well as theory, are discussed.