Process of transition from school-to-work: generator for the initial stage of path dependence in career development

Main achievements: The major objective of the project was accomplished through building life-table of survival analysis (event history analysis or duration analysis or transition analysis) for describing transitions from school-to-work using longitudinal micro-data. It is important to mention that we built a longitudinal data base, using the ECHP data base for all the 8 waves, with the SPSS program. The discrete model’s approach for this transition is described as the process of entering on the labour market, between two moments/points in time. The observed subjects are viewed as a cohort, a homogenous one. The selective final sample included the people over 16 years old who responded to the interviews in all the 8 waves, within the same household and who achieved the highest level of education one year before 1994. So, the entrance point is 1994 and the exit point is represented by the year of obtaining the main activity status – self defined as "working with an employer in paid employment (15+ hours/week)". There are some intermediary results obtained for 10 countries: Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Germany (ECHP – from national sources), United Kingdom (ECHP – from national sources). Transition process from school-to-work is described as the distribution of time-to-event variables, where the 'event' is considered ‘to be employed’ (in the conditions already specified) in opposition to the state of not experiencing this event. Additionally, we compared the distribution by levels of a factor variable represented by 'gender'/sex and 'the highest level of general or higher education completed' (stated in ISCED levels). The main results of the study are expressed through: Median Survival Time, Cumulative Proportion Surviving at End of Interval, Probability Density, Hazard Rate - for the aggregate sample and also for the selected countries: Italy, Portugal and Spain. Final remarks: The major objective of the project was accomplished through building life-table of survival analysis (event history analysis or duration analysis or transition analysis) for describing transitions from school-to-work using longitudinal micro-data. But, under this destination we encounter a lot of “traps” and “opportunities” in view to answer to a lot of questions. First set of questions is concentrated to a better understanding of the Life Table Main Results, their interpretation and analysis from the labour market perspective. 1.The cumulative proportion surviving at the end of an interval could be a speed of (still) searching or a speed of (no)allocation? 2. Probability density / probability of experiencing the event of entering on work, during the given year interval, could be an indicator of the absorbent power of the labour market for the new entrants? 3. Could we consider the hazard rate as a way to measure the “permeability characteristic” of the “local” labour market? Second set of questions is strongly connected with some visible consequences of the duration measuring and analysis in perspective of shaping of the working life span. The median period of this transition process or the average searching period regarded as a measure of searching duration could be a starting point to determine: 1. The “average age” of entrance on the labour market; 2. Discussion regarding the age borders for the young people’s definition. We consider that our enterprise was concentrated to find new semantics for the main results obtained through Life Table Analysis, useful for better explaining the functioning and the characteristics of the labour markets at different levels (national, local and regional). The idea of the journey from learning-to-know to learning-to-do represents a complex set of interactions between the individual/person/young and: o itself, in the sense of making a lot of choices (intending to get employment under the personal strategy); o the socio-economic environment, regarded in this article particularly as the labour market space (described under the absorptive, permeability and speed of allocation characteristics for the new entrants); o unknown, in the sense of the efficient utilisation of all the resources under the new circumstances … We tried to answer the questions and present our study results in this paper. For the moment: “that’s it”, even if the various analyses could continue and we suppose having made misinterpretations/inaccuracies/mistakes; we are expecting readers’ comments in order to correct them. The only reliable conclusion is that the Life Table Analysis could represent a useful tool/instrument to better understand and explain the differences in functioning and for better shaping the characteristics of the labour markets.