Understanding school-to-work transitions

Zimmermann, Klaus F.

doi:10.1108/ijm-06-2019-343

Cited by 26 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…The positive effects of job creation schemes were unexpected in the light of a fairly negative verdict from recent policy surveys. Since the reduction of the gap of work experience of young people compared to adults is the key objective of any youth employment policy (see Pastore and Zimmermann, 2019 in the introduction to this special issue), our finding suggests that programmes outside the commercial sectors are also effective in achieving this objective and thereby reduce youth unemployment. Hence, our findings suggest that job creation should be looked more positively at when further developing ALMP provision for young people.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 83%

Active labour market policies for young people and youth unemployment

Speckesser¹,

Carreras

Sala

2019

IJM

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide quantitative estimates on the impact of active labour market policy (ALMP) on youth unemployment in Europe based on a macroeconomic panel data set of youth unemployment, ALMP and education policy variables and further country-specific characteristics on labour market institutions and the broader demographic and macroeconomic environment for all EU-Member States. Design/methodology/approach The authors follow the design of an aggregate impact analysis, which aims to explain the impact of policy on macroeconomic variables like youth employment and unemployment (see Bellmann and Jackman, 1996). This follows the assumption that programmes, which are effective in terms of improving individual employment opportunities, are going to make a difference on the equilibrium of youth unemployment. Findings The findings show that both wage subsidies and job creation are reducing aggregate youth unemployment, which is in contrast to some of the surveys of microeconomic studies indicating that job creation schemes are not effective. This finding points towards the importance to assist young people making valuable work experience, which is a benefit from job creation, even if this experience is made outside regular employment and/or the commercial sector. Research limitations/implications In terms of the variables to model public policy intervention in the youth labour market, only few indicators exist, which are consistently available for all EU-Member States, despite much more interest and research aiming to provide an exhaustive picture of the youth labour market in Europe. The only consistently available measures are spending on ALMP as a percentage of gross domestic product (in the different programmes) and participation stocks and entries by type of intervention. Practical implications The different effects found for the 15–19 year olds, who seem to benefit from wage subsidies, compared to the effect of job creations benefitting the 20–24 year olds, might relate to the different barriers for both groups to find employment. Job creation programmes seem to offer this group an alternative mechanism to gain valuable work experience outside the commercial sector, which could help form a narrative of positive labour market experience. In this way, job creation should be looked more positively at when further developing ALMP provision, especially for young people relatively more distant to engagement in regular employment. Social implications Improving the situation of many millions of young Europeans failing to find gainful employment, and more generally suffering from deprivation and social exclusion, has been identified as a clear priority for policy both at the national level of EU-Member States and for EU-wide initiatives. With this study, the authors attempt to contribute to the debate about the effectiveness of policies which combat youth unemployment by estimating the quantitative relationship of ALMP and other institutional features and youth unemployment. Originality/value To research the relationship between youth unemployment and ALMP, the authors created a macroeconomic database with repeated observations for all EU-Member States for a time series (1998–2012). The authors include variables on country demographics and the state of the economy as well as variables describing the labour market regimes from Eurostat, i.e. the flexibility of the labour market (part-time work and fixed-term employment as a percentage of total employment) and the wage setting system (level and coordination of bargaining and government intervention in wage bargaining).

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 83%

Active labour market policies for young people and youth unemployment

Speckesser¹,

Carreras

Sala

2019

IJM

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“… 4 However, several studies have investigated the impact of similar programmes targeting unemployed youth in other EU countries (see Pastore and Zimmermann 2019b and Pastore and Zimmermann 2019a for a collection of empirical studies and Ghirelli et al 2019 for the evaluation of a programme targeted at unemployed university graduates in Italy). …”

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confidence: 99%

Vocational training for unemployed youth in Latvia

et al. 2021

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We analyze the effectiveness of a vocational training (VT) programme targeting unemployed youth in Latvia, contributing to the scant literature on active labour market policies in transition countries. The programme we analyse is part of the Youth Guarantee scheme (2014–2020), the largest action launched by the European Union to combat youth unemployment after the 2008 financial crisis. Although the programme was targeted to youths aged between 15 and 29, priority was given to those younger than 25 years of age. We exploit this eligibility rule in a fuzzy regression discontinuity design framework to estimate the impact of VT participation on the probability of being employed and gross monthly labour income at given dates after the training. Using rich administrative data, we find that the age priority rule increased programme participation for the youngest group by about 10 percentage points. However, participation in the programme did not lead to statistically significant positive effects in labour market outcomes. We argue that this result could be due to some specific characteristics of the programme, namely the voucher system (potentially inducing lock-in effects) and the type of training (classroom instead of on-the-job training). Moreover, the programme was targeted at ex-ante low-employable individuals (e.g. without vocational qualifications), a fact that is confirmed by our analysis of the characteristics of the population of compliers with the age priority rule.

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“…As a general trend, the transition into adulthood is extending in contemporary societies [17]. Nevertheless, EU countries show considerable differences in transition duration and labor market access due to a range of factors, including the configuration of education systems, and labor market and family arrangements [69]. Therefore, the selected variables on employment cover a wide age range (20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34), starting at 20 to limit the impact of strong variations in education and Vocational Education and Training (VET) systems [4].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Youth Labor Market Integration in European Regions

2020

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Countries’ institutional configurations and structural characteristics play an important role in shaping transitions from school to work. Recent empirical evidence shows significant regional and territorial differences in youth unemployment and labor market participation. Along this research strand, we argue in favor of a place-sensitive approach to youth labor market integration in order to address the regional disparities of young people’s opportunities. In order to investigate the synergic effect of different contextual configurations, we construct a composite measure, namely, the youth labor market integration (YLMI) index. This considers a wide range of indicators of the access, exclusion, and duration of the transition into employment at the regional level. The YLMI index allows cross-regional and longitudinal comparisons of the European Union (EU) local labor markets and youth employment opportunities.

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Understanding school-to-work transitions

Cited by 26 publications

References 18 publications

Active labour market policies for young people and youth unemployment

Active labour market policies for young people and youth unemployment

Vocational training for unemployed youth in Latvia

Youth Labor Market Integration in European Regions

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