School to work outcomes during the Great Recession, is the regional scale relevant for young people’s life chances?

Abstract

The debate on territorial cohesion and spatial inequality recognises the role and influence different scales have on individuals' opportunities with extended effects especially for young people's life chances. In particular, a regional perspective into territorial disparities of socio-economic conditions and welfare in Europe provides a more fine-grained view on the existence of territorially diverging income and labour market conditions for youth that a national level analysis is not able to grasp. This paper focus on regional differences in school to work outcomes of young people using macro-panel data covering the period from 2005 until 2016. We use a plurality of indicators to study to what extent school to work transitions are better studied at regional level and to characterise those transitions in a more comprehensive way. Our findings demonstrate that there are huge differences both in the level and in the dispersion of young people's school to work outcomes across European territories. This tells us that the allegedly assumed national homogeneity of transition systems can definitely not be taken for granted. Moreover, we show that the Great Recession had strong but differentiated impacts at regional level.

Youth Labor Market Integration in European Regions

“…Nevertheless, EU countries show considerable differences in transition duration and labor market access due to a range of factors, including the configuration of education systems, and labor market and family arrangements [69]. Therefore, the selected variables on employment cover a wide age range (20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34), starting at 20 to limit the impact of strong variations in education and Vocational Education and Training (VET) systems [4]. At the same time, exclusion-related variables, including a younger age range (i.e., 15-24 and 18-24), allow to account for outcomes of exclusion dynamics also before the age of theoretical completion of upper-secondary and tertiary educational paths.…”

“…However, recent evidence also emphasizes intranational variations as an under-researched issue in the research on education-work transitions [5,9]. Due to ongoing trends of (1) rescaling in territorial governance and (2) persistence of spatial disparities, the internal homogeneity of transition systems at the country level cannot be taken for granted [4].…”

“…Limitations in the collection and representativeness of regional data persist, restricting the range of harmonized and comparable information at a regional level [55]. Empirical evidence addressing this gap shows significant differences across regions, confirming the relevance of investigating the subnational variations of youth labor markets [4]. These contributions consider specific aspects of school-to-work transitions, focusing mainly on measures of exclusion from the labor market, i.e., youth unemployment and NEET rates [56][57][58].…”

“…Countries' institutional configurations and structural characteristics matter considerably in mediating the impact of the economic cycle on youths, generating specific outcomes in terms of labor market integration [1]. However, recent empirical evidence shows significant regional and territorial differences in youth unemployment patterns [2,3], school-to-work transition outcomes, and young adults' living conditions [4,5]. Due to the ongoing trends of rescaling in territorial governance [6] and to the persistence of spatial disparities [7,8], the internal homogeneity of transition systems at the country level cannot be taken for granted [9].…”

Regime Change: Education to Work Transitions in England, 1980s–2020s

“…At the other end of the continuum, vocational education and training differ in how securely they are linked to employment destinations and the levels of these occupations in the countries' class structures. Scandurra et al (2020) have used Pohl and Walter's (2007) typology which enhances Esping-Anderson's types of welfare regimes with information on typical mixes of academic/general and vocationally specific education and training, to analyse EUROSTAT data on relationships between levels of educational attainment, NEET, and youth unemployment rates from 2005 to 2016 across the whole of Europe. They find differences between regime types, but also differences by country within regime types plus, in some countries, substantial regional differences.…”