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Diverse pathways in becoming an adult: The role of structure, agency and context

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  • Schoon, Ingrid
  • Lyons-Amos, Mark

Abstract

Although the transition from education to work has been a topic of much research, there is still lack of understanding regarding experiences of recent cohorts of young people. Moreover, much of the debate has focused on the polarization of youth transitions, at the neglect of a large group of young people who fall outside this dualism. This paper introduces a diverse pathways view offering a more comprehensive understanding of changing youth transitions and examines how transitions are shaped by interactions between structure and individual agency. The study is based on data from the British Household Panel Study (BHPS) and the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UK-HLS) using sequence analysis to identify transition patterns among cohorts born in 1980–1984 and 1985–1989. Five distinct clusters could be identified, differentiating between those who participate in extended education, two pathways dominated by continuous employment, either directly after completing compulsory schooling at age 16 or after some further education, and two pathways characterized by exclusion from the labor market (either through prolonged experience of unemployment or inactivity). Both structural and agency variables are associated with variations in transition patterns, pointing to the need of conceptualizing the role of the agent as well as that of structures and resources for a better understanding of the processes underlying the selection into different pathways.

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  • Schoon, Ingrid & Lyons-Amos, Mark, 2016. "Diverse pathways in becoming an adult: The role of structure, agency and context," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 46, pages 11-20.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:228772
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Ken Roberts, 2022. "Integrating Young People into the Workforce: England’s Twenty-First Century Solutions," Societies, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-15, March.
    3. Hartung, Andreas & Wessling, Katarina & Hillmert, Steffen, 2019. "Educational and occupational aspirations at the end of secondary school: The importance of regional labour-market conditions," ROA Research Memorandum 004, Maastricht University, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA).
    4. Rita Hordósy & Tom Clark, 2018. "‘It’s Scary and It’s Big, and There’s No Job Security’: Undergraduate Experiences of Career Planning and Stratification in an English Red Brick University," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 7(10), pages 1-20, September.
    5. Susanne Ferschl & Peter Gelius & Karim Abu-Omar & Maike Till & Richard Benkert & Thomas Abel, 2022. "Exploring Well-Being and Its Correlates among Young Men Using Sen’s Capability Approach: Results from the Young Adults Survey, Switzerland (YASS)," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-22, January.
    6. Lyons-Amos, Mark & Schoon, Ingrid, 2018. "Differential responses in first birth behaviour to economic recession in the United Kingdom," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 50(2), pages 275-290.
    7. Farnaz Mehdipour Maralani & Azre Shalbaf & Masoud Gholamali Lavasani, 2018. "Agentic Engagement and Test Anxiety: The Mediatory Role of the Basic Psychological Needs," SAGE Open, , vol. 8(2), pages 21582440187, April.
    8. 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.
    9. Finger, Claudia, 2022. "(Mis)Matched College Aspirations and Expectations: The Role of Social Background and Admission Barriers," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 38(3), pages 472-492.
    10. Hartung, Andreas & Wessling, Katarina & Hillmert, Steffen, 2019. "Educational and occupational aspirations at the end of secondary school: The importance of regional labour-market conditions," Research Memorandum 019, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).

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