School-to-work transition and vocational education: a comparison across Europe

Youth unemployment is a major problem that the economic systems face. Given this issue, we assess whether school-to-work transition is easier for individuals with secondary vocational education with respect to general secondary education. We want to explore which vocational systems across Europe produce better effects. We use data from a module on “Entry of young people into the labour market” from the 2009 European Labour Survey and we estimate a multinomial probit models allowing for violation of the irrelevance of the alternative assumption. We find that in countries with the dual vocational system, vocational education improves employability whereas in countries with school-based vocational system results are mixed and only in some cases they are significantly positive. We provide policy implications showing that vocational systems can improve school-to-work transitions and that the dual vocational structure appears to be an effective system. Given the relevance of youth unemployment, we provide valuable information on how to mitigate this problem. The use of cross-country comparisons offers great insights on which vocational systems appear to be well-suited to enhance employability.