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This article analyses whether graduates in university vocational courses benefited from better labour market outcomes in France than those in academic courses. We focus on bachelor degrees in France, comparing 'general' or 'academic' degrees with 'vocational' degrees. The vocational bachelor degree was created in 1999 in the continuity of the education policy of expanding the number of vocational courses in French universities and in the framework of the Bologna Process. It aimed to lead to a new qualification at the intermediate level between the qualified technicians' diplomas and the engineering or senior management diplomas. We use a French survey on higher education leavers in 2001 who were interviewed in 2004. In order to take into account the selection in the vocational track, we applied statistical methods which allow us to compare graduates with similar characteristics. Our results show that education mismatch is less great for vocational bachelor graduates, which is coherent with the idea that the vocational track better responds to employers' needs. In addition, we find empirical evidence that vocational bachelors tend to be associated with higher pay even after accounting for the heterogeneity of students. Our last findings suggest that the university-employer link specifically developed for the vocational bachelor course influences the way vocational graduates find their job: they are significantly more likely to use university-based contacts to obtain their first jobs.

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In this study, we examine the self-reported subjective well-being (SWB) of youth who are 'not in employment, education or training' (NEET) across 24 countries in Europe. Theorizing from a youth transition regimes perspective focusing on the varying levels of social protection available to youth as well as social norms regarding the transition to adulthood, we attempt to understand the psychological outcomes associated with youth NEET statuses across country contexts. Using European Social Survey (ESS) data, we compare not only the SWB of NEET individuals with that of non-NEET youth, but also how it differs amongst specific NEET sub-categories. We hypothesize that the well-being of NEET youth will be highest where more comprehensive social protections are available, but that inequalities in well-being between NEET and non-NEET groups will be minimized in contexts where prolonged school-to-work transitions to adulthood are the social norm. We find that overall levels of well-being differ systematically amongst countries for both NEET and non-NEET groups, being highest in the Nordic countries. However, when examining relative scores that take into account the distribution of well-being within each country, we discover that inequalities between NEET sub-categories are also the most pronounced in these 'universalistic' contexts.

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A top priority for public policies at both national and European levels, young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) face a risk of exclusion that varies in intensity from country to country. While education level plays a central role in these situations, viewing them through the lens of basic competencies sharpens the focus. After all, the international data show that the same level of qualification does not guarantee the same level of competencies everywhere. This article examines how these differences can be explained, and to what extent these basic competencies protect young people from becoming not in employment, education or training regardless of their level of qualification.

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In this study, we examine how student employment impacts higher educational trajectories in France. Focussing on undergraduates' educational outcomes, we show the consequences of different intensities and levels of recurrence of student employment on perseverance in higher education. We use data from a nationally representative four-year longitudinal survey, descriptive analysis and logistic regression are performed to control for student characteristics. Our results suggest that student employment, especially when intensive and during periods of exams, increases exam failure. When it is recurrent over time, student employment often leads to university dropout. Furthermore, even for those who do manage to reconcile work and study, it lengthens the time spent in higher education. This consequence is particularly costly in France, where success in higher education is often judged by time-to-completion, encouraging strategies that lead to finishing degree requirements as quickly as possible. This approach is difficult to follow for students who must combine work and study, leading to particularly pronounced costs.

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Many politicians and employers consider the expansion of higher education in all industrial societies as an efficient way to modernise the economy and to decrease youth unemployment. However, a major part of the scientific debate focuses on skill upgrading versus downgrading of occupations and the relationships with schooling and vocational preparation. This analysis is a tentative first step towards clarifying this trend and relationships between educational policy and qualification requirements in Spain. The authors of this article explain that their particular purpose was to attempt to answer this central question - ‘is the increase in the number of jobs which require a high level of education sufficient to absorb the increasing education of the labour force, and is there a formal correspondence between changes in occupational structure and educational levels?’. Results of the methodology devised by several European teams, financed by the European Centre for Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP) and applied on the Spanish labour market allowed Giret and Masjuan to provide some information in answer to the question. On the Spanish labour market, statistical results indicate that an occupation-education-age structure of an estimated theoretical labour force based on a ‘supply-side effect’ is more highly correlated with the observed occupation-education-age structure in 1990 than an estimated labour force based on a ‘demand-side effect’. Despite the technological change or the industry rationalisation, the results seem to show a homogeneous propagation of the educational level for each occupation.

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The aim of this paper is to analyse the school-to-work transition of young people in France, focusing specifically on those who are not in employment, education or training (so-called NEETs), in order to understand their risk of becoming and remaining NEET. Using longitudinal data from a representative national cohort of French young people leaving the educational system in 2010, this study shows how NEET status fits in more or less long-lasting ways in their career pathways. We indicate that 70 per cent of young people experienced a NEET status at least once over the three-year period, if we retain a static and conventional definition of NEET. For most of them, NEET is a temporary situation that spans all educational attainment groups. However, a quarter of the cohort is still in a NEET status 3 years after leaving the education system. The lack of educational and social capital, as well as geographical economic conditions, are decisive factors in remaining in long-term NEET trajectories.

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This paper aims to study the earnings expectations of first-year students at a French university and to compare them with the observed earnings of young people in the labour market for that same year. One of the original features of this research is that it includes, as explanatory variables, several measurements of cognitive capacities which it might be thought would influence individuals' expected earnings. Furthermore, although many surveys have been made in both developed and developing countries, none has so far been conducted in France as far as [the authors] are aware. This type of enquiry seems all the more important because the French labour market is highly segmented to the disadvantage of young people. The structuring of internal markets relegates young people to the position of outsiders on the labour market, an effect that is further accentuated in times of economic crisis.

The results, even if a slight overestimation is observed (about seven per cent), point to a certain proximity between expected earnings of young people at the start of their careers and actual earnings on the labour market. However, the overestimation strongly increases 10 years later (about 41 per cent). [The authors'] findings also highlight the importance of the environment in which students make their choices about education. Expected earnings are proportionally higher when their parents seem to be involved in the careers guidance, even controlling for the effect of parental socio-economic status. The positive opinion of parents about the orientation or the connection between the discipline and the father's occupation are generally associated with higher earnings. In addition, our results show a strong impact of cognitive variables which are far more significant than variables relating to past educational performances.

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Professional and vocational courses requiring five years' post-secondary study are supposed to meet specific needs for competences in a given area of employment. Young graduates believe they have acquired the specific competences they think their employers require. In their view, the shortfall lies in their general competences. Is this a reason to question the increasingly vocational nature of university courses?

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The number of students attending higher education institutions has more than doubled in Europe during the last twenty-five years. The resulting flow of graduates on the labour market may justify the doubts expressed about these young people’s career prospects, given the present economic and social trends. In this context, the European Union has opted for increasing the level of education, and the wager seems to have paid off. In a survey conducted in 15 European countries, it was established that the graduates questioned quickly obtained long-lasting employment and that they were satisfied on the whole with their occupational situation. Although there exist some disparities depending on factors such as country, field of study and gender, it was concluded that the competences of young European graduates are generally recognized in their jobs.

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This report deals with the dynamics of the balance between the supply of and the demand for skills in the labour market in developed countries, especially those of the European Union. In a context of radical changes in the demand for labour, which have resulted primarily from the development of international trade and technological progress, the transformation of the nature and content of work is forcing the productive system to adapt to new skills within a very short period of time, which often bears no relation to the traditional timescale for the acquisition of qualifications. At the same time, as the average number of years of study per head of population in Europe continues to rise, generations of increasingly highly qualified young people are finding it no easier to obtain employment. On the basis of this twofold observation, the aim of our research is to examine the way in which adjustments are made in the skills market and the role of initial and further-training systems in the regulation of that market.

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The volume from which this chapter is taken is indexed at TD/TNC 66.507. Volumes two and three are indexed at TD/TNC 66.508 and TD/TNC 66.509. Individual chapters from the three volume set are indexed from TD/TNC 66.510 to TD/TNC 66.540.

The first background report, published in two volumes, is indexed at TD/IRD 88.38 and TD/INT 58.286. Show less