Empirical research on Youth Transitions to, and within the labour market: Findings of descriptive and econometric analyses

The research project aimed to provide research outcomes on the magnitude of youth transitions, the main drivers and barriers of youth transitions and potential long-term outcomes (‘scarring’) on people’s subsequent employment trajectories. This report summarises the evidence obtained by making use of a range of individual-level data sets and methods, in particular:

1) An analysis of Labour Force Survey (LFS) data creating pseudo-cohorts to examine • long-term education and labour market trends affecting 16-to-24 year olds from 39 different birth cohorts and subsequent employment trajectories.

2) An analysis of the ‘Ad Hoc module’ of 2009 from the European Labour Force Survey • (EU:LFS) on ‘Youth Transitions’ on individual long-term outcomes of particular youth labour market transitions.

3) An analysis of various cohort studies (National Child Development Study [NCDS], British Cohort Study [BCS], Youth Cohort Study [YCS], Longitudinal Study of Young People in England [LSYPE]) comparing the episodes young people experience when making transitions into the labour market in youth and early adulthood. This study uses sequential analysis for individual monthly panel data to describe biographies of young people until the age of 25 (based on BCS and NCDS) and until the age of 19 (for YCS and LSYPE).

4) An analysis of the transition from secondary schooling to further destinations • using a recent cohort of School Leavers National Pupil Data (NPD) merged to records of National Client Casework Information System (NCCIS) on young people’s activities after the end of compulsory education including econometric models on drivers and barriers of particular transitions.