📄 Abstract
The transition from higher education into paid employment has ceased to function as a predictable rite of passage. Where earlier cohorts encountered a comparatively linear sequence of qualification, entry, and consolidation, young adults in advanced economies now negotiate a transition zone characterised by fixed-term contracts, project-based engagements, platform-mediated labour, and the accelerating diffusion of generative artificial intelligence into precisely those cognitive occupations that academic credentials were once assumed to secure. This narrative review synthesises the literature on the quarter-life crisis (QLC) and reinterprets it through the lens of Bourdieu's theory of capital, asking how the convertibility of cultural and symbolic capital into economic security has been altered by contemporary labour market conditions. Sixty-one conceptual, empirical, and policy sources published between 1986 and 2025 were retrieved from PsycINFO, Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar and synthesised thematically. Three findings structure the argument. First, the QLC appears to bifurcate: young adults holding open-ended contracts report a crisis of meaning organised around purpose, authenticity, and vocational fit, whereas those in precarious or absent employment report a survival mode in which the crisis is organised around labour market entry itself. Second, duration dependence and scarring effects convert the extended search into a self-reinforcing disadvantage, culminating in credential underutilisation or exclusion. Third, symbolic capital in the form of degrees has become both harder to convert and more rapidly devalued where artificial intelligence substitutes for entry-level cognitive tasks, which repositions self-employment and multiple income streams as an ambivalent strategy that redistributes rather than reduces risk. The review argues that the QLC should be theorised as a structurally conditioned crisis of capital conversion rather than as a purely developmental episode, and derives implications for counselling, higher education, and social work practice.
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📚 How to Cite:
Dr. Sora Pazer , THE QUARTER-LIFE CRISIS AS A CRISIS OF CAPITAL CONVERSION: LABOUR MARKET PRECARITY, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, AND THE BLOCKED TRANSITION INTO WORKING LIFE. A NARRATIVE REVIEW , Volume 12 , Issue 8, August 2026, EPRA International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research (IJMR) , Pages: 250 - 261 , DOI: https://doi.org/10.36713/epra31210