IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unm/umagsb/2020013.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

From school to where? How social class, skills, aspirations, and resilience explain unsuccessful school-to-work transitions

Author

Listed:
  • Dicks, Alexander

    (RS: GSBE other - not theme-related research, ROA / Education and occupational career)

  • Levels, Mark

    (RS: GSBE other - not theme-related research, ROA / Education and occupational career, RS: SBE - MACIMIDE)

  • van der Velden, Rolf

    (RS: GSBE Theme Learning and Work, ROA / Education and occupational career)

Abstract

The school-to-work transition is one of the formative phases in the life course. During it, many important decisions are made. We use sequence analysis and logistic regression to study why some young people become NEET (Not in Employment, Education, or Training). We find that classical stratification variables such as higher parental education and higher education increase the probabilities for a successful school-to-work transition. In addition, we hypothesized that alignment of educational attainment and occupational aspirations as well as personality should play a role in this process. While we do not find evidence for an additional effect of alignment, we do find one for resilient personality. We also test hypotheses of mediation and moderation. We find that there is significant mediation of social class via youth’s education, but not via aspirational alignment or personality. We also find that education and personality can partly compensate for a low social class background.

Suggested Citation

  • Dicks, Alexander & Levels, Mark & van der Velden, Rolf, 2020. "From school to where? How social class, skills, aspirations, and resilience explain unsuccessful school-to-work transitions," Research Memorandum 013, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
  • Handle: RePEc:unm:umagsb:2020013
    DOI: 10.26481/umagsb.2020013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/ws/files/47546933/RM20013.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.26481/umagsb.2020013?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Holtmann, Anne Christine & Menze, Laura & Solga, Heike, 2017. "Persistent Disadvantages or New Opportunities? The Role of Agency and Structural Constraints for Low-Achieving Adolescents’ School-to-Work Transitions," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 46(10), pages 2091-2113.
    2. Matthias Studer & Gilbert Ritschard, 2016. "What matters in differences between life trajectories: a comparative review of sequence dissimilarity measures," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 179(2), pages 481-511, February.
    3. Uysal, Selver Derya & Pohlmeier, Winfried, 2011. "Unemployment duration and personality," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 980-992.
    4. Gary S. Becker, 1964. "Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, First Edition," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck-5.
    5. Oreopoulos, Philip, 2007. "Do dropouts drop out too soon? Wealth, health and happiness from compulsory schooling," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages 2213-2229, December.
    6. Schmillen, Achim & Umkehrer, Matthias, 2013. "The scars of youth : effects of early-career unemployment on future unemployment experience," IAB-Discussion Paper 201306, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    7. Herbert Gintis & Samuel Bowles & Melissa Osborne, 2001. "Incentive-Enhancing Preferences: Personality, Behavior, and Earnings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 155-158, May.
    8. Bell, David N.F. & Blanchflower, David G., 2011. "Youth Unemployment in Europe and the United States," IZA Discussion Papers 5673, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Jaap Nieuwenhuis & Rongqin Yu & Susan Branje & Wim Meeus & Pieter Hooimeijer, 2016. "Neighbourhood Poverty, Work Commitment and Unemployment in Early Adulthood: A Longitudinal Study into the Moderating Effect of Personality," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(12), pages 1-12, December.
    10. Ng-Knight, Terry & Schoon, Ingrid, 2017. "Can locus of control compensate for socioeconomic adversity in the transition from school to work?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 46(10), pages 2114-2128.
    11. Duncan McVicar & Michael Anyadike‐Danes, 2002. "Predicting successful and unsuccessful transitions from school to work by using sequence methods," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 165(2), pages 317-334, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alderotti, Giammarco & Rapallini, Chiara & Traverso, Silvio, 2023. "The Big Five personality traits and earnings: A meta-analysis," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    2. Júlia Mikolai & Hill Kulu, 2019. "Union dissolution and housing trajectories in Britain," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 41(7), pages 161-196.
    3. Alexander Patzina & Hans Dietrich & Anton Barabasch, 2022. "Health, Personality Disorders, Work Commitment, and Training‐to‐Employment Transitions," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 10(2), pages 369-382.
    4. Andy Dickerson & Emily McDool & Damon Morris, 2023. "Post-compulsory education pathways and labour market outcomes," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 326-352, May.
    5. Wiedner, Jonas & Schaeffer, Merlin, 2020. "Career trajectories into undereducation. Which skills and resources substitute formal education in the intergenerational transmission of advantage?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 68, pages 1-1.
    6. Cees H. Elzinga & Matthias Studer, 2019. "Normalization of Distance and Similarity in Sequence Analysis," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 48(4), pages 877-904, November.
    7. Gensowski, Miriam, 2018. "Personality, IQ, and lifetime earnings," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 170-183.
    8. Xu, Yilan & Beller, Andrea H. & Roberts, Brent W. & Brown, Jeffrey R., 2015. "Personality and young adult financial distress," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 90-100.
    9. Dusanee Kesavayuth & Vasileios Zikos, 2018. "Happy People Are Less Likely To Be Unemployed: Psychological Evidence From Panel Data," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(2), pages 277-291, April.
    10. Cubel, Maria & Nuevo-Chiquero, Ana & Sanchez-Pages, Santiago & Vidal-Fernandez, Marian, 2014. "Do Personality Traits Affect Productivity? Evidence from the Lab," IZA Discussion Papers 8308, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Adhitya, Dhian & Samudro, Bhimo Rizky, 2019. "The Role of Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Skills on Labour Market Outcomes in Indonesia," Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, vol. 53(1), pages 3-16.
    12. Piccarreta, Raffaella & Struffolino, Emanuela, 2019. "An Integrated Heuristic for Validation in Sequence Analysis," SocArXiv v7mj8, Center for Open Science.
    13. Erofili Grapsa & Dorrit Posel, 2016. "Sequencing the real time of the elderly: Evidence from South Africa," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 35(25), pages 711-744.
    14. Schoon, Ingrid & Heckhausen, Jutta, 2019. "Conceptualizing Individual Agency in the Transition from School to Work: A Social-Ecological Developmental Perspective," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 4(2), pages 135-148.
    15. Maria Cubel & Ana Nuevo‐Chiquero & Santiago Sanchez‐Pages & Marian Vidal‐Fernandez, 2016. "Do Personality Traits Affect Productivity? Evidence from the Laboratory," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(592), pages 654-681, May.
    16. Eichhorst, Werner & Hinte, Holger & Rinne, Ulf, 2013. "Jugendarbeitslosigkeit in Europa: Status Quo und (keine?) Perspektiven," IZA Standpunkte 57, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Floro Ernesto Caroleo & Antonella Rocca & Paolo Mazzocchi & Claudio Quintano, 2020. "Being NEET in Europe Before and After the Economic Crisis: An Analysis of the Micro and Macro Determinants," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 991-1024, June.
    18. Brenčič, Vera & McGee, Andrew, 2023. "Employers' Demand for Personality Traits," IZA Discussion Papers 16083, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Piccarreta, Raffaella & Bonetti, Marco, 2019. "Assessing and comparing models for sequence data by microsimulation (with Supplementary Material)," SocArXiv 3mcfp, Center for Open Science.
    20. Keefe Murphy & T. Brendan Murphy & Raffaella Piccarreta & I. Claire Gormley, 2021. "Clustering longitudinal life‐course sequences using mixtures of exponential‐distance models," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 184(4), pages 1414-1451, October.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:unm:umagsb:2020013. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Andrea Willems or Leonne Portz (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/meteonl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.