This text provides a comparative analysis of school-to-work transitions in EU member states. It shows how differences in both European education and training systems, as well as labour market institutions, generated significant variation in the experiences of young people in the 1990s.

The 2021 edition of the OECD Employment Outlook focusses on the labour market implications of the COVID‐19 crisis. Chapters 1-3 concentrate on the main labour market and social challenges brought about by the crisis and the policies to address them.

Levels of suffering among young people have always been much higher than governments suggest. Indeed, policies aimed at young workers have often been framed in ways that help secure conformity to a new employment landscape in which traditional securities have been progressively removed. Increasingly punitive welfare regimes have resulted in new hardships, especially among young women and those living in depressed labour markets. Framed by the ideas of Norbert Elias, Young People in the Labour Market challenges the idea that changing economic landscapes have given birth to a ‘Precariat’ and argues that labour insecurity is more deep-rooted and complex than others have suggested. Focusing on young people and the ways in which their working lives have changed between the 1980s recession and the Great Recession of 2008/2009 and its immediate aftermath, the book begins by drawing attention to trends already emerging in the preceding two decades. Drawing on data originally collected during the 1980s recession and comparing it to contemporary data drawn from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, the book explores the ways in which young people have adjusted to the changes, arguing that life satisfaction and optimism are linked to labour market conditions. A timely volume, this book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers who are interested in fields such as Sociology, Social Policy, Management and Youth Studies.

Based on up to date qualitative and ethnographic research, this book examines youth education-to-work transitions in the UK. Using the theoretical lens of a Foucauldian governmentality approach, the authors consider the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of youth employability training and demonstrate how different employability schemes planned and operationalised in diverse geographical and economic landscapes work in practice. The book examines and compares a range of employment entry route programmes and reveals the tension between employability and good quality employment, and the ways in which young people from varying social and regional backgrounds are positioned very differently within this.

The recent recession has led to an ongoing crisis in the youth labour market in Europe. This timely book deals with a number of areas related to the context, choices and experiences of young people, the consequences of which resonate throughout their lives. The focus of the contributions to this volume is on issues which, whilst undoubtedly important, have thus far received less attention than they arguably deserve. The first part of the book is concerned with issues related to education and training, covering matters such as the role of monopsony in training, the consequences of over-education, and the quality of educational institutions from primary to tertiary. The second part is primarily concerned with the long-term consequences of short-term choices and experiences including contributions on health-related choices, health consequences later in life, factors affecting the home-leaving decision, as well as an analysis of the increasing intergenerational transmission of inequality; a trend which accelerated during the recession. The last part of the book deals with issues related to youth unemployment and NEET – the direct consequence of the recession. This book contains a number of innovative analyses reporting significant findings that contrast with standard models. Some of the more interesting results directly contradict conventional wisdom on a number of topics from the importance of monopsony in training markets to the importance of transitory income changes on consumption of addictive goods. This book is suitable for those who study labor economics, political economy as well as employment and unemployment.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of youth unemployment and is renowned for being one of the most unequal societies in the world. In this context, training and education play critical roles in helping young people escape poverty and unemployment. Post-school Education offers insights about the way in which young people in South Africa navigate their way through a host of post-school training and education options. The topics range from access to, and labour market transitions from, vocational education, adult education, universities, and workplace-based training. The individual chapters offer up-to-date analyses, identify some of the challenges that young people face when accessing training and education and also point to gaps between education and the labour market. The contributors are all experts in their respective components but write with a holistic view of the post-school education system, using an unashamedly empirical lens. Post-school Education will be of interest to all researchers and policymakers concerned with the transformative role of further education and training in society--Back cover.

Young people are a vulnerable category of workers, finding themselves in a delicate phase of their working life: their first entry into the labour market. In many European countries, youngsters are unemployed or have difficulty finding and obtaining jobs. This situation has deteriorated particularly after the crises, recessions and stagnation that has impacted European economies in recent years. In addition to the cyclical or crisis impact, structural factors are also very important. Additionally, prolonged crises, as in some Eurozone countries, have transformed a significant part of cyclical unemployment in structural (long term) unemployment. Young People and the Labour Market: A Comparative Perspective explores the condition of young people in the labour market. The authors present new evidence from several countries, with a special focus on Europe, and offer a comparative perspective. They investigate questions such as which structural conditions and labour market institutions guarantee better youth performance, which education systems and school-to-work processes are more effective and in which countries is gender differentiation less of an issue. All of the aforementioned, as well as many other comparisons which the authors make, are significant in helping to facilitate the successful design of labour and education policies. As the first investigation by economists to explore the complexity of this topic, this book will be useful to both economists and sociologists who are interested in the role of young people in the labour market, and the problem of youth unemployment.

Young adulthood - ages approximately 18 to 26 - is a critical period of development with long-lasting implications for a person's economic security, health and well-being. Young adults are key contributors to the nation's workforce and military services and, since many are parents, to the healthy development of the next generation. Although 'millennials' have received attention in the popular media in recent years, young adults are too rarely treated as a distinct population in policy, programs, and research. Instead, they are often grouped with adolescents or, more often, with all adults. Currently, the nation is experiencing economic restructuring, widening inequality, a rapidly rising ratio of older adults, and an increasingly diverse population. The possible transformative effects of these features make focus on young adults especially important. A systematic approach to understanding and responding to the unique circumstances and needs of today's young adults can help to pave the way to a more productive and equitable tomorrow for young adults in particular and our society at large. Investing in The Health and Well-Being of Young Adults describes what is meant by the term young adulthood, who young adults are, what they are doing, and what they need. This study recommends actions that nonprofit programs and federal, state, and local agencies can take to help young adults make a successful transition from adolescence to adulthood. According to this report, young adults should be considered as a separate group from adolescents and older adults. Investing in The Health and Well-Being of Young Adults makes the case that increased efforts to improve high school and college graduate rates and education and workforce development systems that are more closely tied to high-demand economic sectors will help this age group achieve greater opportunity and success. The report also discusses the health status of young adults and makes recommendations to develop evidence-based practices for young adults for medical and behavioral health, including preventions. What happens during the young adult years has profound implications for the rest of the life course, and the stability and progress of society at large depends on how any cohort of young adults fares as a whole. Investing in The Health and Well-Being of Young Adults will provide a roadmap to improving outcomes for this age group as they transition from adolescence to adulthood.

This book studies young people who are Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEET); a prime concern among policymakers. Moving past common interpretations of NEETs as a homogeneous group, it asks why some youth become NEET, whereas other do not. The authors analyse diverse school-to-work patterns of young NEETs in five typical countries and investigate the role of individual characteristics, countries’ institutions and policies, and their complex interplay. Readers will come to understand youth marginalization as a process that may occur during the transition from school, vocational college, or university to work. By studying longitudinal analyses of processes and transitions, readers will gain the crucial insight that NEETs are not equally vulnerable, and that most NEETs will find their way back to the labour market. However, they will also see that in all countries, a group of long-term NEETs exists. These exceptionally vulnerable young people are sidelined from society and the labour market. The country cases and cross-national studies illustrate that policies intended to help long-term NEETs to find their way in society are very limited. The book provides useful theoretical and empirical insights for scholars interested in the school-to-work transition and marginalized youth. It also provides helpful insights in vulnerability to policymakers who aim to combat youth marginalization. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.