The School-to-Work Transition of Jordanian Youth

The paper aims at better understanding the school-to-work transition among the Jordanian youth using the recent Jordan Labor Market Panel Survey 2010 dataset (JLMPS 2010). The wealth of this dataset allows, for the first time, to present a dynamic analysis of the Jordanian labor market and especially to follow year after year the young individuals’ different employment statuses. Five main results can be concluded from this study. First, young Jordanians are relatively immobile; they rarely change their employment status during the observation period of 1999-2010. Second, the more educated men get more protected jobs in both the public and the private sectors. The formal jobs they obtain are relatively stable; they rarely change their employment status. But when they do change, it is usually to get another formal employment. Instead less educated men have more difficulty obtaining a stable employment and/or a formal employment and they more often work informally. Third, women are either inactive, unemployed or working in formal employment (public or private). Women with more education are more active and much less likely than the least educated women to withdraw from the labor market. Fourth, there is a clear segmentation between formal and informal sectors. Young people who at one time informally employed do not obtain later on another job protected by a contract and social security. Finally, very few employment statuses lead to a permanent formal employment (public or private). Only initial formal employment or unemployment (or inactivity for women) leads to the two best types of wage work (public job and private formal job).