Youth employment, unemployment and school participation

This paper identifies and examines the trends in teenage labour force and school participation in Australia over the past 25 years. It covers a broad range of associated issues such as school retention, youth employment, and apprenticeships. The aim here is to determine the important movements in young persons' participation in post-compulsory education and the labour force, and the changing interaction between the two in recent decades. To this end, a model of secondary education participation is developed. The results from this work indicate that declining full-time employment and increasing income support for students have been the most important determinants of school participation in Australia over the last 25 years. The results of this paper have important implications for government policy on school participation.