WHAT HAPPENS WITH EARLY SCHOOL LEAVERS ON THE LABOUR MARKET? THE CASE OF EASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE

We usually associate early school leaving with the present failure of youth to improve their education, as well as with future disadvantages in relation to access to training and education, employment opportunities, employment quality, lower social benefits, etc. But early school leaving could be "a choice" of individuals for better prospects on the labour market or for not significantly higher returns of education for a higher number of schooling years. The rates of early school leavers in countries from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) vary a lot from 2.8% in Croatia to 19.1% in Romania in 2015. On the other hand CEE countries are characterized by lower wages and this is in fact a competitive advantage, their economic development being built on it. Considering these, we aim to analyse the profile and the situation of early school leavers on the labour market in the CEE countries. We use for our analyses both Eurostat data on early school leavers and youth unemployment, as well as a selection of items addressing employment opportunities of the Flash Eurobarometer 395 (European Youth).