What influence do work-life situations and vocational orientation measures exert on individual commitment to continuing training?

"Continuing vocational training is considered to play an important role in both social and occupational inclusion. The present paper will analyse the influence this exerts on participation in continuing vocational training and on private expenditure, the latter being measured in terms of the costs borne by the trainees themselves and the amount of free time invested. Consideration needs to be accorded to the fact that individual social groups enjoy different levels of access to continuing training and to the circumstance that their commitment to continuing training is influenced by varying prevailing general conditions. For this reason, the principle focus of the paper will be on the question of how these general conditions or work-life situations can be described and on whether it is possible to identify various groups. The main features of vocational orientation measures will also be included in the analysis. The basis for the study is the data collected by an expert commission set up to look into the financing of lifelong learning and the participation or non-participation in continuing training and the results of an investigation conducted by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training into the costs and benefits of continuing vocational training for individuals. These two studies are based on the same statistical population and render it possible to observe aspects of both continuing training participation and private expenditure in terms of how these relate to continuing training. It becomes readily apparent that persons may be allocated to groups in accordance with the work-life situation characteristics they display, these groups exhibiting differences in terms of inclusion and investment in continuing vocational training. Although gender is revealed to exert no significant individual influence on commitment to continuing training, women in particular form a group which has its basis in their work-life situation, the fact that the latter tends to present some difficulties meaning that a lower level of commitment to continuing training may be exhibited. In addition to the above, vocational orientation measures exert a clear influence on commitment to continuing training." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))