Irena Kogan, Walter Müller (Hrsg.)
School-to-work Transitions in Europe: Analyses of the EULFS 2000 Ad hoc Module

147 S.
,
Mannheim
,
Mannheimer Zentrum für Europäische Sozialforschung
,
2002

The transition from school to work is among the key topics of current social research and policy interests as it touches upon the core issue of youth labour market integration in different European countries, exhibiting a wide range of institutional structures and macroeconomic context conditions. It has also been one of the most challenging areas of study because of the data constraints and particularly the effective lack of adequate, accessible and comparative longitudinal data. This situation has improved with the introduction of the European Union Labour Force Survey (EULFS) 2000 ad hoc module on transitions from school-to-work, which combines the virtues of large-scale Labour Force Surveys with special topical information on school-to-work transitions. That is, by providing an add-on to the regular LFS surveys, the ad hoc module allows to generate a certain amount of more particular and in part even longitudinal information on transition processes in about 20 European countries, otherwise unavailable at the European level. A particular value of the ad hoc module is that it adds significant detail with respect to educational attainment and careers by providing measures of level and type of education at leaving the educational system for the first time. Second, the module adds a longitudinal perspective on individual employment careers by providing measures of the incidence of job search periods, job search duration, duration of first job, and occupation of first job, which allow assessing some features of labour market dynamics at the early career stages. Finally, the module has some information on social background, so that for the first time, the effects of this variable can also be analysed from the LFS data.