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
duration of youth unemployment. Section 4 presents empirical evidence on the job match in the youth labor
market.
2. The data
Empirical results are based on data from the Encuesta Socio-Demogra´fica conducted in 1991 by the Instituto
Nacional de Estadı´stica.
1
Although this tracer survey was not specifically designed to study the transition
phenomena of school leavers into the labor market, it contains valuable information for the analysis attempted
here. The survey details the main activity and the job of each individual at the time the data were collected; it
also describes their level of education, marital status, age and gender, as well as their parents’ socio-economic
background. Furthermore, the survey contains useful bio- graphical information on the date of school-leaving,
labor market entry, job mobility, marriage
2
and immi- grant status.
The survey was administered to more than 150,000 individuals. From this large dataset we extract two
cohorts of individuals: those who left the formal school- ing system in 1989 and those who left in 1990.
3
The selected sample includes young men and women in the
16–30 age bracket. Obviously, this is an extensive defi- nition of youth. We do this because in Spain formal
schooling frequently continues into the late twenties. According to the Encuesta Socio Demogra´fica about 52
percent of students aged 16–30 in 1989 and 1990 leave the schooling system; depending on the level of edu-
cation this proportion is between 28 percent and 90 per- cent Table 1. Among these school leavers the percent-
age who drop out without a diploma varies between 52 and 82 percent.
For each cohort of school leavers, the survey makes it possible to observe the individual’s transition from
1
See Instituto Nacional de Estadı´stica 1991 for a detailed description of the survey.
2
More than 95 percent of school leavers live with their par- ents; for this reason we do not explore the effect of marital
status on the transition process from school to work.
3
We do this to obtain more observations.
school to work over an 18-month period. Inside this win- dow, the data allow us to describe the labor market status
of young people 6 and 18 months after they left school, as well as the main characteristics of their first job. The
labor market status of school leavers is identified from two crucial survey questions: “When did you look for a
first job?” and “When did you find your first job?” see Instituto Nacional de Estadı´stica, 1991. We exclude
individuals who found their first job the same year they were doing military service because the survey does not
make it possible to identify their labor market status without ambiguity. Individuals who were working while
in school are obviously excluded because they did not find their first job inside the 18-month period in question.
Finally, we exclude people who were looking for a job before leaving school as their period of unemployment
is outside this frame. After deleting missing values, these exclusions left us with 1,683 observations. These obser-
vations account for about 75 percent of school leavers aged 16–30 in 1989 and 1990. Although information is
available on the duration of unemployment as expressed in months, it could not be used because of an ambiguity
regarding the questionnaire on this point. The survey does not report any information on wages; for this rea-
son, the dataset precludes the possibility of any con- clusion on the impact of overeducation and undereduc-
ation in the wage-generating process.
Table 2 describes the main characteristics of the selec- ted sample. The results show that individuals are equally
distributed by gender and by cohort. On average, individ- uals left the school at the age of 21. When considering
the highest level of education completed, 33 percent of young people have left the educational system with a
primary education diploma. The secondary general edu- cation category includes individuals who have obtained
the bachillerato unificado polivalente;
4
they have com- pleted at least 12 years of schooling. According to our
results, 16 percent of both cohorts of young men and women have left the educational system with such a dip-
loma. The vocational category of education groups together people who have either a lower 10 years of
schooling or an upper 13 years of schooling vocational diploma; of the 22 percent of young people who left the
educational system with a vocational diploma, more than 45 percent have a lower level. Higher education includes,
on the one hand, individuals who have an escuela univer- sitaria diploma three years of post-secondary education
and, on the other hand, those who have graduated from a facultad or an escuela tecnica superior—ETS
5
—five years of post-secondary education; these two categories
4
This level includes also young people who have reached the curso de orientacion universitaria, which is necessary to
register at the university.
5
ETSEngineering School.
141 G. Lassibille et al. Economics of Education Review 20 2001 139–149
Table 1 School situation of each cohort of students aged 16–30
a
percent Compulsory
Upper Vocational
Higher education Total
education secondary
education education
Escuela Facultad or
Universitaria ETS
1989 cohort Staying on at school
37.6 72.2
39.3 19.8
24.8 51.9
Leaving school 62.4
27.8 60.7
80.2 75.2
48.1 Total
100.0 100.0
100.0 100.0
100.0 100.0
Leaving school With diploma
74.8 52.1
62.5 81.6
79.3 79.0
Without diploma 25.2
47.9 37.5
8.4 20.7
21.0 Total
100.0 100.0
100.0 100.0
100.0 100.0
1990 cohort Staying on at school
35.0 72.1
43.2 21.7
29.5 50.4
Leaving school 65.0
27.9 56.8
78.3 70.5
49.6 Total
100.0 100.0
100.0 100.0
100.0 100.0
Leaving school With diploma
68.8 49.6
57.8 89.2
83.6 78.5
Without diploma 31.2
50.4 42.2
10.8 16.4
21.5 Total
100.0 100.0
100.0 100.0
100.0 100.0
a
The levels of education are defined in the text. Table 2
Sample characteristics Mean
Standard deviation
Age in years 21.188
3.283 Male
0.499 0.500
Highest educational diploma Compulsory education
0.323 0.468
Upper secondary education 0.163
0.370 Vocational education
0.222 0.416
Higher education Escuela Universitaria 0.102
0.303 Facultad or ETS 0.166
0.373 Non-certified years of schooling
0.316 0.465
Participation in non-formal 0.142
0.441 educational program
Father’s occupation Self-employed
0.262 0.440
Managers and professionals 0.266
0.442 Skilled workers
0.226 0.418
Unskilled workers 0.246
0.409 Living in town of population
Under 5,000 0.137
0.344 Between 5,000 and 20,000
0.166 0.373
Between 20,000 and 100,000 0.223
0.416 Over 100,000
0.470 0.499
Cohort 8990 0.532
0.499 Number of observations
1,683 –
represent 10 percent and 16 percent respectively of the total of both cohorts of school leavers.
The award of a diploma is a flawed measure of the investment in education, particularly in Spain where the
educational system is characterized by low completion rates compared to other developed countries OECD,
1998. As shown in Table 2, 32 percent of young Span- ish people have started a level of studies and have
dropped out without any diploma. Results not reported to save space indicate that this percentage is particularly
high among those individuals who have only a compul- sory level diploma; more than 70 percent of them have
enrolled into upper secondary education or vocational education and have not completed one of these two lev-
els of studies. To what extent non-certified years of schooling affect the transition process from school to
work is one of the issues addressed in this paper.
Apart from the formal level of education attended the survey permits one to observe individual participation in
non-formal programs. As shown in Table 2, 14 percent of school leavers have attended a non-formal educational
program. These programs are very heterogeneous. They are organized mainly by private educational institutions.
Generally, individuals enroll in such institutions to pre- pare selective entry qualifications for particular occu-
pations, or to complete their formal training in some very specific field.
142 G. Lassibille et al. Economics of Education Review 20 2001 139–149
3. The length of youth unemployment
