What young English people do once they reach school-leaving age: A cross-cohort comparison for the last 30 years

(2017) - Jake Anders, Richard Dorsett

Journal: Longitudinal and Life Course Studies
Link:: http://www.llcsjournal.org/index.php/llcs/article/view/399
DOI:: 10.14301/llcs.v8i1.399
Links::
Tags:: #paper #NCDS #Attainment #Transition #school-to-work #SequenceAnalysis #LifeCourse
Cite Key:: [@Anders2017]

Abstract

This paper examines how young people’s early transitions into the labour market have changed between cohorts born in 1958, 1970, 1980, and 1990. We use sequence analysis to characterise transition patterns and identify three distinct pathways in all cohorts. An ‘Entering the Labour Market’ group has declined significantly in size (from 91% in the earliest cohort, to 37% in the most recent), an ‘Accumulating Human Capital’ group has grown in its place (from 4% to 51%), but also a ‘Potentially Difficult Transition’ group has grown alongside this, reaching 12% in the most recent cohort. These trends appear to reflect behavioural rather than compositional changes. Females and those who are from a non-white ethnic background have gone from being more likely to be in the ‘Potentially Difficult Transition’ group, to being less likely. Coming from a low socioeconomic status background has remained a strong predictor of having a transition of this type across all four cohorts. These early transitions are important, not least since we show they are highly predictive of longer-term outcomes.

Notes

“We use sequence analysis to characterise transition patterns and identify three distinct pathways in all cohorts. An ‘Entering the Labour Market’ group has declined significantly in size (from 91% in the earliest cohort, to 37% in the most recent), an ‘Accumulating Human Capital’ group has grown in its place (from 4% to 51%), but also a ‘Potentially Difficult Transition’ group has grown alongside this, reaching 12% in the most recent cohort” (Anders and Dorsett, 2017, p. 75)

“These early transitions are important, not least since we show they are highly predictive of longer-term outcomes.” (Anders and Dorsett, 2017, p. 75)

“growing concern about the number of young people failing to make a successful transition from education into employment. Increasingly, this appears to be a structural, rather than cyclical, problem. We see evidence of this from that fact that although youth unemployment in the UK was falling in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it started rising again as early as 2004, long before the general downturn in the economy (OECD, 2008” (Anders and Dorsett, 2017, p. 76)

“Our approach is to use sequence analysis (Abbott, 1995) to quantify the similarity between individuals' transitions over a period of 29 months from the September following their 16th birthday. Previous research has shown that young people’s transitions into work may be highly differentiated (Fergusson, Pye, Esland, McLaughlin, & Muncie, 2000)” (Anders and Dorsett, 2017, p. 76)

“The National Child Development Study (NCDS) is a longitudinal survey of all individuals born in one week in 1958. Background variables (used later to predict transitions) were taken from interviews with the participant and their parents at age 16 (NCDS Sweep 3, 1974) and activity histories assembled using recall interviews at age 23 (NCDS Sweep 4, 1981). The analysis sample has around 6,000 individuals.” (Anders and Dorsett, 2017, p. 77)

“The British Cohort Study (BCS) is a longitudinal survey of individuals born in 1970. Background variables were taken from interviews with the participant and their parents at age 16 (BCS Sweep 4, 1986). Activity histories were assembled primarily using recall interviews at age 26 (BCS Sweep 5, 1996). The analysis sample contains around 8,600 individuals” (Anders and Dorsett, 2017, p. 77)

“with the NCDS and BCS, these needed to be constructed using the recall questions about young people’s activities, along with their start and end dates. Constructing these histories required some data cleaning” (Anders and Dorsett, 2017, p. 77)

“The advantage of sequence analysis is that it provides a means of measuring the differences between individuals' histories in a way that captures their full detail.” (Anders and Dorsett, 2017, p. 80)

“We categorise the seven clusters identified in each cohort’s transitions into three broader groups which we label as follows: • ‘Entering the Labour Market’” (Anders and Dorsett, 2017, p. 83)

“Accumulating Human Capital’” (Anders and Dorsett, 2017, p. 83)

“‘Potentially Difficult Transition’” (Anders and Dorsett, 2017, p. 83)

“in the NCDS 85.9% of those deemed to be ‘Potentially Difficult Transition’ on the early basis (and for whom we can derive a longer run grouping) are placed in this group over the longer term” (Anders and Dorsett, 2017, p. 99)

“It is well-established that young people's employment is more sensitive than older people's to the underlying strength of the economy” (Anders and Dorsett, 2017, p. 100)

“nsurprisingly, we find a substantial shift away from early labour market entry towards gaining significant amounts of additional education or training before entering a job.” (Anders and Dorsett, 2017, p. 100)

“This group has grown in size from 5% of the sample born in 1958 to 12% of the sample born in 1990, with pretty much all of this growth concentrated between the 1980- and 1990-born cohorts.” (Anders and Dorsett, 2017, p. 100)

“In addition, we find that socioeconomic status, as captured through a combination of indicators, remains a powerful predictor of young people’s chances of experiencing a potentially difficult transition.” (Anders and Dorsett, 2017, p. 100)