Description:

This paper considers the fact that school going youth now have the opportunity to obtain substantial amounts of 'work experience' through both part time jobs and school organised work experiences gained as part of school based vocational education. At a time when youth transitions are argued to be more complex and less linear than in the past, some argue that combining work with study further 'muddies the waters' of the school to work transition while the OECD suggests that work experience during the transition phase can have important consequences for the ways in which young people find their way to the labour market and into regular employment. This paper (as part of a wider doctoral thesis) addresses the labour market destinations of school leavers with (and without) different forms of early work experiences undertaken during their second level education in the Republic of Ireland and the UK.

Different theoretical perspectives generate different predictions about the value of early work experiences. Could early work experiences could be a stepping stone for the future careers of young people. Such a view is remarkable given that according to classical human capital theory, early work experience acquired after and not during schooling is an investment. In the Irish context, the approach of modelling schooling and work experience as sequential events remains the commonly accepted practice. Work experience is still frequently defined as actual experience since leaving full time schooling (Breen 1986; Denny, Harmon et al. 2000) despite the fact that McCoy and Smyth (2004) point out that junior cycle and senior cycle students often acquire substantial work experience through part time jobs before leaving school. American research has suggested that conventional models which omit part time employment significantly overstate the wage effects of schooling (Light 2001; Beduwe and Giret 2002; Molitor and Leigh 2005). Similarly, in terms of school organised work experiences, the content of what is taught in schools (and provided through school based work experience) should reflect more accurately employers needs and successful schooling, especially if they are adequately measured or indexed by educational qualifications. In addition, network theory contends that early work experience can provide both institutional and personal networks between schools and employers and young people and employers and so, work entry problems arise when these networks are lacking (Rosenbaum and Jones 2000). This paper seeks to address the impact of early work experiences on labour market outcomes given that little is known about the value of early work experience upon leaving school in comparative perspective.

The data used in this paper comes from cross sectional School Leaver Surveys (Irish School Leaver Survey, Scottish School Leaver Survey) and the England & Wales Youth Cohort Survey. Regression methods will be used.

The main expectation of the analyses is that 'early workers' or those with early work experiences gained before leaving school will have different labour market outcomes as a result of the different institutional contexts within which they exist.

References:

• Beduwe, C. and J.-F. Giret (2002). Early labour force experience and transition from school to work in France. European Research Network on Transitions in Youth, European University Institute, San Domenicodi.
• Breen, R. (1986). "Does Experience of Work Help School Leavers to Get Jobs?" Sociology 20:207-227
• Byrne, D. (2005). 'The labour market effects of early work experiences for a cohort of Irish youth'. Presented at the Transitions in Youth Annual Conferece (TIY), Valencia, Spain.
• Denny, K., C. Harmon, et al. (2000). The impact of education and training on the labour market experiences of young adults. London, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
• Light, A. (2001). "In-School Work Experience and the Return to Schooling." Journal of Labor Economics 19(1): 65-93.
• McCoy, S. and E. Smyth (2004). At work in school: part-time employment among second-level students. Dublin, The Liffey Press in association with the Economic and Social Research Institute.
• Molitor, C. and D. E. Leigh (2005). In-School work experience and the returns to two-year and four-year colleges. Economics of Education Review.
• Rosenbaum, J. E. and S. Alter Jones (2000). Interactions between High Schools and Labour Markets. Handbook of the Sociology of Education. M. T. Hallinan. New York; London, Kluwer Academic/Plenum. 1: 411-436.
• Saunders, L., S. Stoney, et al. (1997). "The Impact of Work-Related Curriculum on 14 to 16 year-olds." Journal of Education and Work 10(2): 151-167.