This study explores school-to-work transitions in Germany, aiming to achieve a richer understanding of the complexity of labour market entry trajectories while focusing on transition measures. The term transition measures refers to additional training courses that complement the regular vocational education and training system of firm-based or school-based qualification routes. The contribution of supplementary training measures to the school-to-work transitions of young adults is a controversial issue. While programmes aim to ease the transitions of low-skilled youth in the training and labour market, critics point to the risks of long-term subsidised careers or fragmented employment trajectories in subsequent years. By applying sequence analysis to administrative data of the Federal Employment Agency, individual trajectories of a cohort of school leavers with an at-most intermediate school-leaving certificate are analysed for the period 2008 to 2014. The results show a complex picture of ten distinct school-to-work transition patterns. Youth passing through transition measures tend to experience a less continuous but still purposeful transition pathway. We also identify a small number of youth experiencing at-risk trajectories characterised by a highly discontinuous transition process, which points to sustained detachment from the training and labour markets.

This paper demonstrates the high sensitivity of youth's fear of failure to local culture, in terms of its persistence across space and its change (hysteresis) in times of economic shocks, which renders entrepreneurship a very dubious tool for tackling youth unemployment especially in times of crisis. The paper compares in particular the propensity to entrepreneurship among young people in Germany and Greece as a function of their fear-of-failure and its variation across space (Greece and Germany) and over time (before and after the crisis in 2007). Data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) provides a pooled cross-section for the period 2003 -2010. We address the data using a probit model with year fixed effects. Regarding the influence of personal fear-of-failure, we find that youth between 15-24 years of age are less entrepreneurial in both Greece and Germany, while the 25-34 years old young adults in Greece are already at the same entrepreneurial level as an average adult. Our findings also support existing gender differentials in both countries, which generally phase out among young people. Yet, country differences in perceptions have the greatest impact on entrepreneurial propensity. Regarding the local cultural characteristics, there is evidence of cultural embeddedness and cultural persistence effects especially among youth between 15 and 24 years of age which makes entrepreneurship an unsuitable tool for handling youth unemployment especially for this age group.

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The study explores routes off benefits through labour market integration for young adults in Germany. Policies for young people are focused on a rapid integration into employment or training to prevent long-term benefits dependency. The causes of long-term benefits receipt can be related to poor labour market opportunities. But in political and public discourse, long-term benefits dependency is most widely regarded as the consequence of young adults' low labour supply. The article examines the labour market transitions of 650 beneficiaries aged 18 to 24. The analysis combines survey data on beneficiaries in Germany and longitudinal register data for 2005 to 2007. Though most of the young adults surveyed enter employment or vocational training, a high percentage continues to receive benefits. Long-term benefits receipt is related to low levels of qualifications and young parenthood; there is no evidence for young people resigning themselves to benefits receipt.

Adolescents' occupational expectations are relevant for occupational status attainment. In strong vocational education and training (VET) systems, such as in Germany, school leavers face the challenge of forming occupational expectations that correspond to the competitive VET market. This study investigates students' target occupations in the application process and its relation to their first training occupation. Do applicants for VET positions apply for occupations of different socioeconomic status over time? Does the status of the target occupations increasingly fit to the finally achieved training occupation? Are there differences by familial socioeconomic background? Analysis are based on longitudinal data on the application process collected from German students in lower secondary and intermediate secondary schools in one urban area. Overall, the status level of the target occupations at the beginning of the application process differs significantly according to school track, but additionally to school grades or family background. At the end of the application process, the application behaviour becomes diversified: applicants with poor school grades and of low status continue to apply for target occupations at a similar status level but at the same time apply for occupations of relative lower status. This lower level does not, however, translate into training occupations.

This study investigates social differences in the risk of long-term benefit receipt of young adults in Germany. Although employment is a major route to end social benefit receipt, it may not result in financial independence for all social groups in their early working lives as this also depends on the status of their parents: Do young benefit recipients have unequal chances of making the transition from benefit receipt as soon as they take up employment? How stable is the impact of parents' socioeconomic status on the transition once young adults complete their vocational education? This study conducts an empirical analysis of the careers of a cohort of 18-to-24-year-old Germans who received benefits in 2005 by combining survey data and register data for a six-year observation period. Event history analyses indicate that social differences persist when young adults claim social benefits. In particular, parents' socioeconomic status is positively associated with their offspring's likelihood of ending receipt of social benefits as soon as they are in full-time employment. Parents' socioeconomic status has a relatively stable impact for young beneficiaries irrespective of whether they have completed vocational qualifications or not. The findings suggest that these social differences persist during early working life.