Life chances and Life courses: Institutional transformations and the social stratification of contemporary life course inequalities

This dissertation examines contemporary intergenerational inequalities and life chances, centering on how social origin shapes today’s labor market achievements. The overarching question guiding this work is whether the recent structural and institutional shifts impacting the stability and security of work-life trajectories have fostered greater equality of opportunity, reinforced existing disparities, or even generated new ones. The research unfolds through four empirical chapters, each engaging with the broader theoretical framework, and employing and developing advanced methodological approaches. The first chapter delves into the repercussions of macro-level institutional transformations on work-life trajectories in Germany and the UK, revealing country-specific nuances in exposure and economic penalties associated with accumulated employment instability across birth cohorts. The second chapter broadens the perspective by revealing that family background significantly influences exposure to income and earnings volatility across the lifecycle, over and above the levels of individuals’ resources, with institutionally driven variations between Denmark, Germany, and the United States. Moving to specific life course junctures, the third chapter illustrates how flexibilization-driven inequalities during the school-to-work transition interact with intergenerational social inequalities, in Italy more than in Germany. This research highlights that only Italian workers from advantaged family backgrounds manage to offset occupational penalties resulting from unstable labor market entry. The final chapter, focusing on the UK labor market and using an experimental design, unveils significant discriminatory tendencies favoring candidates with high-status backgrounds, intersecting gender, and parenthood. Through these empirical contributions, this dissertation advances our understanding of evolving intergenerational inequalities, emphasizing the importance of adopting a life-course perspective for a comprehensive analysis.