Mari Amdahl Heglum

• Heglum, Mari Amdahl & Nilsen, Wendy (2024). A life course perspective on the NEET phenomenon: long-term exclusion across cohorts, gender, and social origin among young adults in Norway. Journal of Youth Studies. doi: 10.1080/13676261.2024.2305907. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This study addresses the limitations of the NEET indicator (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) as a measure of the risk of social exclusion. Applying a life course analytical framework and sequence analysis to administrative data from Norway, we investigate the link between NEET status and longer-term exclusion across cohorts, gender, and social origin. Young adults with at least one year of NEET status at ages 22–25 (N = 125 804) are followed for ten years (age 22–31), spanning the years 1993– 2017. Results show a mixed picture for individuals with early-career NEET status: 38 percent fare well over the long term, while over one-third face persistent challenges of long-term exclusion or reliance on permanent disability benefits. A deterioration of longer-term prospects, stronger among men than women, is observed across cohorts. An initial large gender gap in long-term exclusion probability in men´s favor disappears in the youngest cohorts. Social inequalities remain stable over time. Findings support recent research emphasizing NEET category heterogeneity. Static measures may both exaggerate and underestimate the challenges faced by different sub-populations. The risk of long-term exclusion changes markedly over time, showcasing how the NEET indicator’s sensitivity as a measure of at-risk youth depends on the historical-institutional context.

• Heglum, Mari Amdahl (2023). Transformed 'postmodern' life courses? Continuity and change in young adults' labour market trajectories in Norway. European Sociological Review. 40(3), s. 417–433. doi: 10.1093/esr/jcad043. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Accounts of contemporary youth often take increased variability in the young adult life course for granted. However, we lack stud- ies examining variability in the labour market domain during the rapid globalization of the three most recent decades. Employing the theoretical concepts of differentiation and de-standardization, cross-cohort change is evaluated for young adults in Norway, separately by gender and social origin. Using high-quality registry data (N = 1,081,702), 20 complete birth cohorts are followed from age 22 to 31, spanning the years 1993–2017. Adding to the theoretical discussion of life-course change, variability is eval- uated alongside changes in the specific valued content of trajectories—denoted as the quality of labour market attachment. Results show modestly declining trajectory variability. Simultaneously, the quality of male and female labour market attachment changes in opposing normative directions. Female trajectories remain more complex and insecure than men’s but show improve- ments across the 1990s. Among men, especially those of low social origin, labour market trajectories become more precarious. Results challenge the common notion that young adults generally go through increasingly insecure school-to-work trajectories. Instead, findings indicate that social origin interacts with historical time in differing ways among men and women, producing intersectional patterns of continuity and change.

• Ballo, Jannike Gottschalk; Heglum, Mari Amdahl; Nilsen, Wendy & Bernstrøm, Vilde Hoff (2022). Can adolescent work experience protect vulnerable youth? A population wide longitudinal study of young adults not in education, employment or training (NEET). Journal of Education and Work. 35(5), s. 502–520. doi: 10.1080/13639080.2022.2099534. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Early work experience is found to be an influential factor in young people’s transitions from school to work. Still, we know little about whether early work experience can protect vulnerable young people from subsequent exclusion from labour and education in early adulthood. Our objective is therefore to examine how early work experience in adolescence influences the risk of being NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training), and whether this relationship is stronger for early school leavers and young disabled people. We utilise Norwegian register data covering the entire 1985-birth cohort, followed from age 16 to 29 (n ~ 50 000). Linear probability models are used to estimate the NEET risk at age 25 and age 29. The findings reveal that early work experience is related to a lower NEET risk for everyone, but more strongly for the young people with disabilities or early school leaving. The findings support early work experience as a potentially important protective factor against subsequent NEET status, particularly among vulnerable young people.

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• Heglum, Mari Amdahl (2026). Continuity and Change in Young Adults’ Labor Market Establishment Patterns in Norway, 1993-2017: A Cross-Cohort Study. OsloMet - storbyuniversitetet. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This dissertation examines how the labor market trajectories of Norwegian young adults have changed across birth cohorts. The overarching aim is to assess how empirical patterns of change align with prevailing theoretical and public narratives about the labor market challenges facing young adults in Norway. The study is motivated by a recurring tension in how the Norwegian case is understood. On the one hand, Norway is often portrayed as an exceptional welfare state where protective and enabling labor market and welfare institutions, together with a prosperous economy, provide a strong shield against the insecurities facing youth in other countries. On the other hand, national public and scholarly debates are strongly influenced by a narrative of rising problems of youth disengagement and exclusion, sometimes even framed as a “crisis” in young adults’ transitions to work. To empirically assess these contrasting narratives, I develop and apply a conceptual framework that aligns empirical analyses with contrasting theoretical perspectives on the Norwegian work and welfare system. The framework integrates these perspectives into four stylized narratives of how Norway’s work-welfare “package” might shape young adults’ work patterns: The Double Hazard, Double Protection, Lurking Crisis, and Welfare Buffer narratives. These narratives generate alternative expectations about cohort-based change and guide the interpretation of empirical results. Using Norwegian register data on income, education, welfare benefits, and family formation, I study longitudinal trajectories of work and educational attachment and detachment for cohorts born between 1971 and 1986, following them for ten years of young adulthood (ages 22–31), covering the period from 1993 to 2017. Three research papers address different aspects of these trajectories. Paper 1 analyzes the extent of differentiation, precarization, and de-standardization processes across birth cohorts for men and women of differing social origins. Paper 2 examines the long-term trajectories of young adults who have been outside work and education (NEET) in their early careers. Paper 3 examines changes in the interdependence between young adults´ work and family trajectories, as well as the long-term work career quality of young mothers as compared to other groups, in the context of major periods of extensive family policy expansions across recent decades. The findings indicate that Norway should neither be characterized as a clear “double protection” nor as a “double hazard” case. Rather than supporting any notion of a general “youth crisis,” the analyses show that the likelihood of following stable and secure labor market trajectories increased between 1993 and 2017 for both men and women and across social origin categories. This suggests that the Norwegian welfare state has, overall, continued to “enable” stable and secure transitions to work for new generations of young people. However, at the same time, group-specific patterns of change are evident. For some men, particularly for some men of lower social origins and among men who have experienced early-career NEET status, long-term outcomes have worsened. Among women, career quality has generally improved, and the share in precarious or exclusionary trajectories has declined or remained stable. The findings are therefore most consistent with a differentiated “welfare buffer” interpretation. Institutional arrangements have more effectively protected some groups, while others appear more vulnerable to “new” labor market risks. Overall, this calls for the adoption of a gendered and intersectional perspective on the challenges facing new generations of youth. Lastly, although gender differences have narrowed, inequalities by gender and social origin persist among young adults in Norway. Social-origin differences remain largely stable and are more pronounced among women. Despite clear progress, young mothers still face notable relative disadvantages, pointing to the current limits of the welfare state in addressing remaining inequalities.

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• Heglum, Mari Amdahl (2026). How do institutions shape youth-to-adulthood trajectories and vice versa? The role of education, work and werlfare in a comparative perspective. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Heglum, Mari Amdahl (2026). Unges vei inn i arbeidslivet: Utenforskap, utviklingsløp og motstridende narrativer om velferdsstatens rolle. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Det finnes mange fortellinger om ungdom som faller utenfor, både i forskningen og i offentlig debatt – mange av dem til dels motstridende. Men hva sier tallene egentlig om utviklingen? Og hvilke forklaringer kan tenkes å ligge bak trendene vi ser?

• Heglum, Mari Amdahl (2026). Et langtidsperspektiv på ungt utenforskap. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Heglum, Mari Amdahl & Wel, Kjetil A. van der (2025). Changing Patterns of Work-Family Interdependence in a Social Investment State. Young Adults and Mothers in Norway 1993-2017. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Wel, Kjetil A. van der; Heglum, Mari Amdahl & Östergren, Olof (2024). Ungt «utenforskap». Hvordan går det med unge førstegangsmottakere av trygd og stønad i Norge, Sverige og Danmark? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Wel, Kjetil A. van der; Heglum, Mari Amdahl & Östergren, Olof (2024). Young benefit claimants’ pathways to work in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Heglum, Mari Amdahl (2024). «Myter om ungt utenforskap». Et langtidsperspektiv på tidlige karrierer i Norge. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Heglum, Mari Amdahl (2024). Ungt utenforskap og tidlige karrierer I Norge. Et langtidsperspektiv. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Heglum, Mari Amdahl (2024). «Myter om ungt utenforskap». Et langtidsperspektiv på tidlige karrierer i Norge. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Heglum, Mari Amdahl (2024). Det stemmer ikke at flere unge faller utenfor arbeidslivet. 06.11.2024. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Heglum, Mari Amdahl (2022). Enduring stability in changing times: Complexity and de-standardization of young adult´s labor market attachment patterns since the early 1990s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Heglum, Mari Amdahl (2022). A life course perspective on the NEET-phenomenon: Patterns of social exclusion across cohorts, gender and social origin. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ballo, Jannike Gottschalk; Heglum, Mari Amdahl; Nilsen, Wendy & Bernstrøm, Vilde Hoff (2022). Gi ungdom i faresonen arbeid. 136(41), s. 37–37. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Heglum, Mari Amdahl (2021). Spørreundersøkelse om opplevd diskriminering blant gravide og småbarnsforeldre i arbeidslivet. Data og veien fremover. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Heglum, Mari Amdahl (2021). Enduring stability in changing times: Complexity and de-standardization of young adult´s labor market attachment patterns since the early 1990s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Heglum, Mari Amdahl (2020). Patterns of labor market attachment among young adults outside education, employment, and training. Stability and change across cohorts. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Heglum, Mari Amdahl (2020). Preventing Sick leave and Marginalization in Young Adults. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

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