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The focus of this report, which uses longitudinal data to map the dynamics of the youth labour market and to identify factors that are important in securing full-time work, is on the transition to full-time employment of young people who do not go to university. The study reports on the education and labour market activities of a national sample of youth on their leaving school and analyses the influences of social and demographic factors, school and other educational factors, and initial experiences in the labour market on their post-school activity four years after leaving school, focusing on factors influencing being in full-time employment four years after leaving school. The following research and policy issues are addressed: the general youth labour market situation; the influence of social background factors; the effects of education, including school leaving status and vocational education; and the role of prior labour market experiences. The report contains an executive summary, six chapters and five appendices. Following the introduction, chapter two sets the scene for subsequent chapters by presenting and examining the activity profiles of the group of school leavers who did not go to university; chapter three looks at the pathways of young people in the years leaving school to examine the extent of year-to-year movement in and out of activities; chapter four examines the correlates of activities in the first and fourth years after leaving school, investigating social and socioeconomic background, education and training, and labour market experiences; chapter five explores the influences on securing full-time work using a base model comprising factors found in the previous chapter to have significant influence on being in full-time work in the fourth year after leaving school; and the final chapter addresses the policy and research issues. The report does not support ‘crisis’ accounts of the youth labour market and disputes claims that young people who are not fully engaged in full-time work or study are ‘at risk’ of an unsuccessful school-to-work transition. The findings indicate that: 61% of young men and 45% of young women were in full-time employment in the first year after school; by the fourth year, 77% of young men and 64% of young women were working full-time; the effects of post-secondary vocational education other than apprenticeship and traineeship were mixed; full-time study in the first year after leaving school did not increase the odds of being in full-time work in the fourth year; and among those already in full-time work, a TAFE certificate or diploma tended to further increase the chances of staying in full-time work. Show less

This report investigates the relationship between post-school plans, family background and having a lifelong learning orientation. It highlights the important role of vocational education and training such as TAFE as an alternative for students with no plans to study at university. Data was drawn from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Youth (LSAY) and the OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The study investigated the post-school plans of young people, with a particular interest in those from families of low socioeconomic background, the factors associated with the development of these plans, and the association between types of post-school plans and predispositions towards lifelong learning. The study suggests that the most important factors for predicting post-school plans are gender, ability and the vocational orientation of the student. An orientation to lifelong learning also has an effect but, according to the LSAY data, only a small one. According to the findings, financial disadvantage is not a barrier to post-school study when students choose to study at TAFE or to pursue other vocational options. Students from low socioeconomic backgrounds were found to be more likely to realise their plans for tertiary education when those plans do not initially involve attending university. Four guiding principles for policy development are proposed: (1) the establishment of a national youth mentoring strategy to enhance support provided to young people by families, communities and schools to enable them to make successful choices about their future employment and/or study; (2) government funding to support schools to develop more diverse and flexible pathways into work and/or post-school education to improve outcomes for all students; (3) incentives for businesses to work with schools and tertiary institutions to provide increased opportunities for mentoring and more effective career counselling to ensure that students are better prepared to make choices about post-school work and study; and (4) improved family and community support systems to better support students’ transition from school to work and the development of positive attitudes towards lifelong learning. Show less

The Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) project studies the progress of several groups of young Australians as they move from school into post-secondary education and/or work. The oldest group in the project was born in 1961 while the youngest were in Year 9 in 1998. Data is collected through the Australian Youth Survey, a major longitudinal survey of youth that interviews a group of young Australians annually about their school experiences, post-school education and training participation, and employment activities. Approximately 60 per cent of school leavers in Australia do not enrol for either a university degree or TAFE associate diploma when they leave school, but make alternative choices such as seeking employment or starting an apprenticeship or traineeship. This report traces the pathways followed by this group during the seven years after leaving school and provides a detailed analysis of their labour market experiences. The analysis is based on the outcomes of a sample of Year 10 students in the late 1980s and measures their post-school education, training and employment experiences over the first seven post-school years. A second sample of Year 10 students from the mid-1990s is also used and their transition experiences are measured over three years. The aim is to identify the pathways of those who make successful transitions to stable, full-time employment and those who do not, and to highlight the implications for policy formation.

The report on the transition experiences of those who obtained a tertiary qualification is indexed at TD/TNC 67.143. Show less

This report examines the labour market dynamics between 1996 and 2000 of a cohort of young Australians born in 1975. During this period, most of the cohort were either in postsecondary education and training, or establishing themselves in the labour market. The first chapter reports on their major activity (full time study, full time work, part time work, looking for work and ‘other’ activities) for each year between 1996 and 2000 (when they were 21 to 25 years of age) and also presents the cohort’s participation in education and training and their occupational profiles. The second chapter examines the year-to-year movement between activities and occupational group. The remaining chapters look at full time work, unemployment and marginal activities (unemployment, part time work and other activities excluding domestic responsibilities), respectively. These three chapters provide a breakdown of the proportions of time the cohort spent in each activity. Subsequently, the relationship between time spent in the activity and a range of social background and educational labour market variables is examined. The third section examines the influences of qualifications and labour market experiences on the proportion of time spent in these activities. The report demonstrates the benefits of gaining full time employment early in the school-to-work transition. Experience of working full time has substantially stronger positive effects on the labour market outcomes of 21 to 25 year olds than completion of Year 12 or postsecondary qualifications and training. In terms of policy, the analyses indicate that governments should emphasise securing full time employment and the avoidance of unemployment for those young people who may be at risk of spending much of their time in marginal activities. The report also demonstrates that there is not a large homogenous group of young people excluded from full time work. There is considerable movement across activity states although full time is the most stable. The proportion of young adults who are engaged in marginal activities for long periods is relatively small being less than 10 per cent of the cohort. Show less

LSAY briefing, produced by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), is a series which aims to provide summaries of findings from ACER research and to identify some of the implications for policy and further research. It is based on data from ACER's Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) project and key LSAY reports. This issue, which examines the main pathways by which Australian youth move from school to work, highlights that: the school-to-work pathways in Australia are highly diverse and individualised; by the mid-1990s, 43% of Year 10 students from the late 1980s had obtained either a university degree or a TAFE diploma or were studying for one of these qualifications; tertiary qualifications had considerable influence in maintaining full-time employment; the majority of school leavers without tertiary qualifications spend most of their first seven post-school years in full-time work; about 16% of male Year 10 students and 20% of female students had problematic pathways; young people whose main after school activity in the first year was either an apprenticeship, full-time employment or full-time study were more likely to experience successful pathways.

This brief is based on a paper presented at the Australian Centre conference in Potsdam, Germany in May 2000, which was organised by the Monash University-ACER Centre for the Economics of Education and Training (CEET). The paper, which was published as CEET working paper no. 31, is indexed at TD/TNC 62.35. Show less

The focus of the 2001 ACER Research Conference is on understanding young people's pathways from school to work and adult life and attempts to provide a 'state-of-the-art' review of: the pathways that are available to Australian youths and their views on opportunities and constraints; the major directions of Australian policy and practice; a comparison of Australian development with major overseas trends; evidence of the impact new forms of pathways have and factors that appear important for their success; the main at-risk groups towards whom policy needs to be directed; and the future research priorities. This document contains: (1) Summaries of conference papers; (2) Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth; (3) Conference programs. The papers presented at the conference are: What are pathways?: concepts and evidence from cross-national research / David Raffe; Early school leavers: who are they, why do they leave, and what are the consequences? / Gary Marks and Julie McMillan; Great divides in learning: youth learning pathways in rural and remote Australian towns / Barry Golding; Identifying and meeting the needs of 'at risk' young people / Robin Sullivan; Regional and local government initiatives to support youth pathways: lessons from innovative communities / John Spierings; The report from the Prime Minister's Youth Pathways Action Plan Taskforce: footprints to the future / Shelagh Whittleston; Doing what it takes: options and opportunities for supporting Australian Youth / Jane Figgis; How young people are faring in 2001: learning, work and transition: a summary / Richard Curtain; Building effective local industry-education partnerships to sustain young people / Harris van Beek; Does VET in schools make a difference to post-school pathways? / Sue Fullarton; How effective are apprenticeships and traineeship pathways / Chris Robinson; Meandering, diversions and steadfast purpose: Australian youth pathways in a comparative perspective / Richard Sweet; Improving pathways outcomes for young Indigenous Australians / Peter Buckskin; Understanding youth pathways: paths through the maze: route maps for education, community and health services / Jan Carter; The Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth program / Phillip McKenzie.

Individual papers presented at the conference are indexed from TD/TNC 68.426 to TD/TNC 68.440 Show less

This paper reviews the main comparative research papers on the transition from secondary school level to work, primarily in Europe. The paper aims to identify the important dimensions of variation among education/training systems and their national contexts, which may be hypothesised to influence the success of transitions. It develops a conceptual framework to represent inter-country variations in the nature of the school to work transition process. There are four dimensions of a conceptual framework: the national context; the nature of the education and training system in each country and its connection to the labour market, as well as state policies influencing these processes; the structure of the school to work transition process itself, and the outcomes of the transition process - 'success' and 'failure' in transitions; and variations among the groups of young people in the outcomes achieved. Recommendations are made for additional information needed to test the hypotheses. Show less

This article reports on the findings and implications of a report that investigated the educational and occupational plans of junior secondary students. The study, conducted by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) for The Smith Family, surveyed more than 3000 financially disadvantaged students in Years 8 and 9 who are participating in The Smith Family's 'Learning for life program'. The study investigates the plans and aspirations of these young people and factors associated with these plans, and the accuracy of their understandings about pathways from education to work. The study revealed that these students were beginning to identify areas of work that they like and the pathways required, but that many did not properly understand these routes. It also indicated a mismatch between what these students would like to do and the availability of corresponding jobs in the labour market.

The full report, 'What do students think of work?: junior secondary school students' perceptions of the world of work', is indexed at TD/TNC 81.202. Show less

This study, which looks at whether completing school really benefits all young people, provides estimates of the benefits to additional years of schooling for young people who are assessed as non-academically inclined. It uses data from the 1995 Year 9 cohort of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) to estimate the effects of additional years of schooling on earnings and on the probability of being in employment. While evidence that further years of schooling is actually detrimental to some young people, as the literal interpretation of many of the results suggests, is less clear, it nonetheless should not be ignored by policy makers and alternatives such as reasonable job openings, traineeships and apprenticeships should not be ignored for the sake of accumulating years of schooling. The report concludes that alternative pathways and institutional arrangements need to be available to meet the varying needs, abilities and preferences of all young people, as well as the information they require to make informed decisions on what is optimal for them. Show less

The purpose of the project is to examine senior New South Wales students' expected educational and occupational pathways. It specifically analysed the post-school destinations of both Year 12 completers and early school leavers (or school non-completers) in the first year after leaving school and the educational and occupational expectations of students still at school. The expectations of university and vocational post-school study or training among students at school are compared to the expectations of their parents and teachers. Students' expectations are also compared to the actual participation at university and [vocational education and training] VET of the generally older cohort of school leavers. Students' Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) scores are analysed among students who gained an ATAR score. The report also documents students' expected occupations at age 30. Other aspects of the school-to-work transition analysed in this report include: influences on course selection, early school leaving, plans for further study, course level and field of study among those in post-school study or training, employment, unemployment and the main activities of young people not in full-time work education or work. The report documents many aspects of the school-to-work transition by gender, region, school sector and socioeconomic background. The report is based on data obtained from a representative survey conducted in late 2010 of approximately 6,100 NSW students who were in Years 10, 11 and 12 in 2009. The data also include information from parents (from one in three families) and teachers and principals at the sampled schools. The main activities of Year 12 completers were full-time university study (46 per cent), full time work (22 per cent) which includes apprentices and trainees, part-time work (14 per cent), full-time vocational study at a TAFE (11 per cent) and unemployment (five per cent). The main activities of Year 12 non-completers were full time work (45 per cent), part-time work (19 per cent), full-time vocational study at a TAFE (17 per cent) and unemployment (14 per cent). (Note that the non-completer group is smaller, so there the estimates are less precise, or statistically speaking are associated with wider confidence limits).

Excerpts from executive summary. Show less