The role of the family as the arena for primary socialization is significant throughout our lives. The cultural capital, parental role models, and relationship with siblings all have a tremendous impact on academic and non-academic achievement, social networking, intra- and intergenerational embeddedness, and employment during studies. However, a change in family structure can negatively affect a child’s development, decrease his or her academic and non-academic achievement (Engler, 2016), and also causes a higher prevalence of health risk behaviours (Kovács and Nagy, 2017). In addition, due to the lower level of financial capital provided by the family, young people who have grown up in a non-intact family structure are often forced to work during their university or even high school studies to ensure their self-preservation. In our research, we examined the attitudes of the students studying at the University of Debrecen towards family and work in the light of the family structure, covering childhood storytelling experiences (BEST 2020). In addition to demographic issues, changes in family structure, childhood storytelling habits, and work-related attitudes were examined (N=159). 25.6% of the students’ parents are divorced, 24.3% grew up with their mother. 86.5% of the parents read tales in childhood, mostly (75%) every day, typically mothers. No significant difference could have been detected in childhood storytelling experiences based on family structure (p=0.322). Although the ratio of employment is higher among children of divorced parents, a significant difference is found at the beginning of employment. Based on the results, parents try to support university studies at least partly, but they are unlikely able to provide other resources that could force students to work. Based on our results, it can be stated that the role of the family in the early employment of young people is also significant, and the change in the family structure increases the proportion of employment besides university studies, which is mainly due to the family's financial situation.