Economics of Education Review 20 2001 139–149 www.elsevier.comlocateeconedurev
Youth transition from school to work in Spain
Ge´rard Lassibille
a,
, Lucı´a Navarro Go´mez
b
, Isabel Aguilar Ramos
b
, Carolina de la O Sa´nchez
b
a
Institut de Recherche sur l’Economie de l’Education, 9 Avenue Alain Savary, BP 47870, 21078 Dijon Cedex, France
b
Departamento de Estadı´stica y Econometrı´a, Universidad de Malaga, El Ejido sn, 29013 Ma´laga, Spain Received 16 April 1999; accepted 1 September 1999
Abstract
Using a data set drawn from the Encuesta Socio-Demogra´fica conducted by the Instituto Nacional de Estadı´stica in 1991, we analyze the labor market entrance of Spanish school leavers and the match between education and work at
the early stages of working life. The empirical evidence shows that human capital exerts a strong influence on the duration of unemployment. With regard to the job match between education and work we find that young workers are
more likely to be underutilized compared to their adult co-workers. Regression results indicate that people with higher education have, all else being equal, a lower probability of being overeducated and a shorter length of unemployment.
They also show the poor performance of upper secondary education; a key problem in the Spanish educational system.
2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
JEL classification: I21; J41; J64 Keywords: Human capital; Youth labor market; Over- and underschooling; Spain
1. Introduction
Labor markets in many European countries have been in continual decline over the last two decades. Of these
countries, Spain has probably experienced the most dra- matic change. The unemployment rate of the adult popu-
lation rose by over 15 percentage points over the period 1976–1996; today the unemployment rate for the whole
population is on average about twice that in other Euro- pean countries OECD, 1998. Moreover, the deterio-
ration of the youth labor market has been still more sev- ere and more pronounced than in other countries see,
for example, Korenman Neumark, 1997. In the afore- mentioned
period, the
youth unemployment
rate increased by more than 35 percentage points. In 1996,
Corresponding author. Tel.: +
33-380-395457; fax: +
33- 380-395479.
E-mail address: gerard.lassibilleu-bourgogne.fr G.
Lassibille.
0272-775701 - see front matter
2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 2 7 2 - 7 7 5 7 9 9 0 0 0 6 8 - 0
42 percent of the 16–24-year-old population were unem- ployed; this percentage was, for example, about 4 times
higher than in Germany, 3 times higher than in the Netherlands, 2 times higher than in Belgium and 1.5
times higher than in France.
Although youth unemployment is particularly high in Spain, there is no study which analyzes the transition
process from school to work. This article attempts to fill this gap using the data of the Encuesta Socio-Demog-
ra´fica conducted by the Instituto Nacional de Estadı´stica in 1991. From this rich dataset we extract two cohorts
of school leavers; for each one it is possible to observe an individual transition from school to work over an 18-
month period. Based on this unique sample, we analyze the labor market entrance of young people focusing, on
one hand, on the duration of unemployment after com- pletion of formal schooling, and, on the other, on the
mismatch between education and work during this early stage of the working life.
We follow tradition in presenting empirical evidence on these two topics. We explain the labor market status
140 G. Lassibille et al. Economics of Education Review 20 2001 139–149
of school leavers at different times by personal endow- ments, family attributes and the overall characteristics of
the labor market at a regional level. With regard to the match between education and work we define overeduc-
ation and undereducation in the first job, considering the minimum qualifications required for entering a job. We
explain the match in the youth labor market by both per- sonal and work characteristics.
The paper proceeds in the following manner. Section 2 briefly describes the data. Section 3 focuses on the
