Glenda Quintini

The Changing Nature of the School-to-Work Transition Process in OECD Countries

Despite the fact that today’s young cohorts are smaller in number and better educated than their older counterparts, high youth unemployment remains a serious problem in many OECD countries. This reflects a variety of factors, including the relatively high proportion of young people leaving school without a basic education qualification, the fact that skills acquired in initial education are not always well adapted to labour market requirements, as well as general labour market conditions and problems in the functioning of labour markets. The paper highlights the contrasting trends in youth labour market performance over the past decade using a wide range of indicators. It also presents new evidence on i) the length of transitions from school to work; and ii) the degree to which temporary jobs serve as either traps for young people or stepping-stones to good careers. In addition, the paper reviews some recent policy innovations to improve youth employment prospects.

GOING SEPARATE WAYS? SCHOOL-TO-WORK TRANSITIONS IN THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE

This paper derives school-to-work transition pathways in the United States and Europe between the late 1990s and the early 2000s. To do so, it uses Optimal Matching, a technique developed to sequence DNA. The key advantage of using this technique is that, rather than focusing on a specific point in time or a single destination, such as employment, inactivity or unemployment, they convey information on all activities undertaken by youth over the transition period, their sequence and their persistence. Strong similarities are found between the United States and Europe. However, pathways in the United States are characterised by significantly more dynamism than in Europe: youth in employment tend to change jobs more frequently while inactive or unemployed youth are more likely to experience several short spells rather than a single long one. School-to-work transition pathways in the United States also involve less time spent in unemployment than in Europe. The share of school-leavers involved in pathways dominated by employment is larger in the United States than in Europe and non-employment traps are less frequent in the United States. The most successful European countries in terms of school-to-work transitions are those where apprenticeships are widespread. On the other hand, European countries with a high incidence of temporary work among youth have a significantly smaller share of youth belonging to pathways dominated by employment and a larger share of youth in pathways characterised by frequent job changes separated by long unemployment spells. At the individual level, qualifications, gender, ethnicity and motherhood are found to influence the probability of disconnecting from the labour market and education for a prolonged period of time. Overall, the analysis shows the potential of Optimal Matching as a descriptive tool for the study of school-to-work transitions. It also tentatively explores how pathways obtained through Optimal Matching could be used for further analysis to draw policy-relevant conclusions. At present, data availability appears to be the main barrier to fully exploiting this novel technique. Cet article analyse les trajectoires de transition de l’ecole a l’emploi aux Etats-Unis et en Europe entre la fin des annees 1990 et le debut des annees 2000. Pour ce faire, il utilise « l’Optimal Matching », une technique developpee pour l’analyse des sequences d’ADN. Le principal atout de cette technique est qu’au lieu de se concentrer sur un moment specifique ou sur une seule activite, telle que l’emploi, l’inactivite ou le chomage, elles vehiculent de l’information sur toute les activites entreprises par les jeunes pendant la periode de transition, leur chronologie et leur perseverance. On constante de nombreuses similarites entre les Etats-Unis et l’Europe. Toutefois, les trajectoires aux Etats-Unis sont caracterisees par beaucoup plus de dynamisme qu’en Europe : les jeunes occupes ont tendance a changer d’emploi plus frequemment et les episodes de chomage sont plus souvent cours et repetes que de longue duree. Les trajectoires de transition de l’ecole a l’emploi aux Etats-Unis sont aussi caracterisees par moins de temps passe au chomage qu’en Europe. La proportion de jeunes quittant l’ecole qui entame des trajectoires dominees par l’emploi est plus importante aux Etats-Unis qu’en Europe et les pieges du non-emploi sont moins frequents aux Etats-Unis. Les pays europeens les plus performants en termes de transitions de l’ecole a l’emploi sont ceux ou l’apprentissage est le plus repandu. D’autre part, les pays europeens a forte incidence de l’emploi temporaire parmi les jeunes, presentent une part plus faible de jeunes dans les trajectoires dominees par l’emploi et une part plus importante de jeunes dans les trajectoires marquees par plusieurs changements d’emploi separes par de longs episodes de chomage. Au niveau individuel, le niveau de qualification, le sexe, l’origine ethnique et la maternite influencent la probabilite de se deconnecter du marche du travail et du systeme educatif pour une periode prolongee. Globalement, l’analyse montre le potentiel de l’Optimal Matching comme outil descriptif dans l’etude des transitions de l’ecole a l’emploi. Cet article tente egalement d’utiliser les trajectoires obtenues avec l’application de l’Optimal Matching pour en tirer des conclusions politiques. La disponibilite de donnees est actuellement la principale barriere a l’exploitation a part entiere de cette nouvelle technique.

Why is wage inequality so high in the United States? Pitching cognitive skills against institutions (once again)

We revisit the relationship between cognitive skills and wage inequality using data from the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). We argue that previous research suffered from a number of methodological shortcomings, and we offer a single and unified analytical framework for assessing the contribution of skills (including demand and supply conditions) and labour market institutions to wage inequality. Contrary to most previous research, we find that skills are at least as important as labour market institutions in explaining higher wage inequality in the United States.