Employment stability and social origin: Cumulative advantages in young adults’ homeownership and financial asset accumulation

Millennials experience marked intra-cohort inequalities in asset ownership. In line with the cumulative advantage theory, we posit that school-to-work (STW) transitions and social origins are joint drivers of these disparities. Using prospective longitudinal data from the UK, we employ sequence and cluster analysis to develop a typology of STW trajectories (age 16-25). We then estimate the relationship between this typology and homeownership and financial assets at age 32, while also assessing its predictive value when controlling for income. Finally, we examine the heterogeneities of the STW-asset nexus by social origin. Our findings indicate that: (i) young adults with high-churn or intermittent economic activities, as well as those in prolonged periods of unemployment or inactivity, are less likely to have ever owned a home or hold any financial assets; (ii) advantaged social origins, proxied by parental service class occupation and parental homeownership in adolescence, cumulatively propel the asset outcomes of young adults with already “successful” STW transitions, in part through direct financial support for their first home purchase. This suggests that sustained employment generates a stability premium toward asset accumulation that is both driven and amplified by social origin.