The Influence of Social Contacts on the Vocational Training Success and Entry into the First Job

Theoretical arguments and abundant empirical evidence indicate that social networks play an important role in finding a job, job stability, and labour market success. However, there is surprisingly little research on the influence of social contacts on the school-to-work transition. In Germany, vocational education and training (VET) is crucial to the labour market entry and success, and every year some 700,000 individuals start an apprenticeship. However, about 25 per cent of the VET contracts are terminated prematurely, and part of the VET graduates have problems to find a first job that matches their training. Against this background, the project investigates the hitherto largely neglected role of social contacts for a successful apprenticeship and the transition into first employment after VET on the basis of longitudinal data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). Combined with previous findings on the apprenticeship search success, this study gives a comprehensive overview of the influence of social relationships in the entire school-to-work transition period of adolescents without university entrance qualification in Germany. Social capital approaches serve as the theoretical basis for the project.