Smooth Path or Long and Winding Road? How Institutions Shape the Transition from Higher Education to Work

(2010) - Kathrin Leuze

Journal:
Link:: https://shop.budrich-academic.de/produkt/smooth-path-or-long-and-winding-road/?v=3a52f3c22ed6
DOI:: 10.3224/94075542
Links::
Tags:: #paper #NCDS #Transition #LifeCourse #school-to-work
Cite Key:: [@Leuze2010]

Abstract

Comparative research on higher education often lacks context and dynamics. OECD benchmark studies report the proportion of students of a given age cohort, their average competence scores, the distribution across disciplines, the unemployment rate by educational level and age. No efforts are made to trace the career trajectories of students asking e.g. how long it takes to find a job, how much it fits the qualifications obtained, how long people hold a job. Such studies leave us puzzled and ignorant on processes and dynamics of entering the labour market and the first years in employment. Consequently, we have no grasp on the extent to which national institutions and professions matter. We loo

Notes

“In contrast to the “pure” panel design used by the SOEP, data on education and labour market mobility in the two British cohort studies is collected through retrospective life histories that go backwards from the current state to the date of the previous sweep, and sometimes even further. (The labour market history of NCDS sweep 5 conducted in 1991, for example, covers every month since January 1974, even though another sweep was conducted in 1981). According to Elder (1992), a life history is “a lifetime chronology of events and activities that typically and variably combine data records on education, work life, family, and residence (Elder 1992: 1122). Thus, instead of yearly records of mobility variables provided by the SOEP, the cohort studies allow continuous records for several life domains to be collected. The strength of this design is that for each point in time the status in the life domain as well as relevant covariates can be captured more precisely.” (Leuze, 2010, p. 85)

““continuous” history of events and transitions on a monthly basis, there are restrictions for estimating unbiased parameters across time as well, namely recall error and missing information because of memory (Solga 2001).” (Leuze, 2010, p. 86)