From school to work in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s for early school leavers

The aim of the study is to investigate the route from school to work in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s for early school leavers in Sweden. How has their situation on the labour market developed during this period in relation to young people with a 2-year vocational education and training from upper secondary school? The research material consists of three large scale follow-up studies of school leavers who were investigated seven years after they had left compulsory school at the age of 23 by Statistics Sweden. The first study was conducted in 1978, the second in 1986 and the third in 1995. Employment rates for 16-year-old school leavers were studied for the 7-year follow-up period and were compared to school leavers with a 2-year vocational education and training. Only small differences in employment rates were found between the young men irrespective of whether they had vocational training or not. In the 1990s only men with building and construction training had a much lower employment rate than the male 16-year old school leavers. Differences in employment rates were: also rather small between the compared groups of young women. However, in the 1990s these differences widened and the 16-year-old leavers had the lowest employment rate. Thus, an upper secondary education seems to have become a more important prerequisite for young women to get a job during the investigated period but hardly so for young men.