Using data from a computer‐based formative feedback system, we compare learning gains in the 8 weeks of school closures related to the COVID‐19 pandemic in Switzerland with learning gains in the 8 weeks before these school closures. The school performance in mathematics and language of N = 28,685 pupils is modelled in second‐order piecewise latent growth models with strict measurement invariance for the two periods under investigation. While secondary school pupils remain largely unaffected by the school closures in terms of learning gains, for primary school pupils learning slows down and at the same time interindividual variance in learning gains increases. Distance learning arrangements seem an effective means to substitute for in‐person learning, at least in an emergency situation, but not all pupils benefit to the same degree.

An online survey of children in school grades 4–9 (mostly aged 10–15) was conducted in order to determine the prevalence of young carers in Switzerland using a 2‐stage stratified sampling approach. 4082 respondents were drawn from 230 schools. A total of 3991 respondents were included in the analysis and of these 307 (7.7%) were identified as young carers. The population estimate of prevalence was 7.9 per cent. This suggests that there are around 38 400 young carers in school grades 4–9 in Switzerland. Extrapolating to the 9–16 age group gives a figure of almost 51 500.

Job insecurity has become increasingly evident in European countries in recent years. In Germany, legislation has increased insecurity through erosion of the standard employment relationship. Fixed-term contracts are central to definitions of insecurity based on atypical or precarious work but there is still limited understanding of what creates insecurity and how it affects workers. Drawing on Bourdieu’s thesis that “insecurity is everywhere”, the relationships between subjective and objective measures of insecurity are examined for their impact on the 5-year trajectories of life satisfaction of men and women in the age group 27–30. Latent growth curve analysis of data from the German Socio-Economic Panel for 2010–2014 highlights the adverse and lasting effects of subjective concerns about job insecurity on life satisfaction trajectories. This association cuts across educational groups, with far reaching implications as subjective concerns about job security permeate young worker’s lives well beyond the objective condition of being employed on a fixed-term contract.

Background: Using a unique, longitudinal survey that follows school-to-work transitions of pupils who participated in PISA 2000, this paper investigates adverse consequences, so-called scarring effects, of early unemployment among young adults who acquired vocational credentials in Switzerland.

Even though Japan and Switzerland are characterised by comparatively low youth unemployment rates, non-standard forms of employment are on the rise, posing a risk to the stable integration of young labour market entrants. Drawing on the French approach of societal analysis, this paper investigates how country-specific school-to-work transition systems stratify the risk of non-standard employment in early career differently in Japan and Switzerland. Our results reveal that in Japan, young entrants who completed university education are least at risk of becoming employed in non-standard work. On the contrary, it is the highly educated university graduates who mainly enter the labour market via non-standard employment in Switzerland, where vocational education promotes smooth transitions into standard employment relationships. Our findings suggest that the transition systems of the two countries differ in the way they revert to non-standard forms of employment. However, while job insecurities may not endanger labour market integration of highly skilled university graduates holding good career prospects in Switzerland, they may go hand in hand with social exclusion processes for the low-educated young entrants lacking bargaining power in the segmented Japanese labour market.

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This study used a stratified random sample of classes in Zurich, Switzerland, comprising approximately 2,000 students whose academic performances in math and language were assessed across primary and lower secondary education. Based on this longitudinal data, the study investigated the association of social inequalities with the baseline of, and gains in, academic performance. The study focused on growing social disparities in academic performance during compulsory education, taking into account disparities in the social backgrounds of students as well as in social deprivation of school attendance areas. The results of a multilevel growth curve analysis implemented to model academic performance development at student and school district levels suggest cumulative disadvantages for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. These students (a) start school with lower initial knowledge and (b) experience lower improvements in academic performance. The findings also suggest that more advantaged school attendance areas achieved higher average performance levels in the early stages of primary education despite controlling for student socioeconomic backgrounds. On average, however, this gap in academic performance between more advantaged and more deprived attendance areas did not appear to widen over the subsequent years of compulsory schooling. AbstractThis study used a stratified random sample of classes in Zurich, Switzerland, comprising approximately 2,000 students whose academic performances in math and language were assessed across primary and lower secondary education. Based on this longitudinal data, the study investigated the association of social inequalities with the baseline of and gains in academic performance. The study focused on growing social disparities in academic performance during compulsory education, taking into account disparities in the social backgrounds of students as well as in social deprivation of school attendance areas. The results of a multilevel growth curve analysis implemented to model academic performance development at student and school district levels suggest cumulative disadvantages for students from lower socio-economic backgrounds. These students (i) start school with lower initial knowledge and (ii) experience lower improvements in academic performance. The findings also suggest that more advantaged school attendance areas achieved higher average performance levels in the early stages of primary education despite controlling for student socioeconomic backgrounds. On average, however, this gap in academic performance between more advantaged and more deprived attendance areas did not appear to widen over the subsequent years of compulsory schooling.

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