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Young people’s health and well-being during the school-to-work transition: a prospective cohort study comparing post-secondary pathways

  • Background: At the end of secondary education, young people can either start vocational training, enter university, directly transition to employment or become unemployed. Research assumes that post-secondary pathways have immediate and/or long-term impacts on health and well-being, but empirical investigations on this are scarce and restricted to few countries. Therefore, this study traced the development of health and well-being throughout the highly institutionalised school-to-work transition (STWT) in Germany. Methods: We used longitudinal data of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), a representative sample of 11,098 school-leavers (50.5% girls) repeatedly interviewed between 2011 and 2020. We estimated the effect of post-secondary transitions on self-rated health and subjective well-being by applying fixed-effects (FE) regression, elimi-nating bias resulting from time-constant confounding and self-selection into different pathways. A multiple-sample strategy was used to account for the increasing diversity of STWTsBackground: At the end of secondary education, young people can either start vocational training, enter university, directly transition to employment or become unemployed. Research assumes that post-secondary pathways have immediate and/or long-term impacts on health and well-being, but empirical investigations on this are scarce and restricted to few countries. Therefore, this study traced the development of health and well-being throughout the highly institutionalised school-to-work transition (STWT) in Germany. Methods: We used longitudinal data of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), a representative sample of 11,098 school-leavers (50.5% girls) repeatedly interviewed between 2011 and 2020. We estimated the effect of post-secondary transitions on self-rated health and subjective well-being by applying fixed-effects (FE) regression, elimi-nating bias resulting from time-constant confounding and self-selection into different pathways. A multiple-sample strategy was used to account for the increasing diversity of STWTs patterns. Models were controlled for age, as well as household and residential changes to minimise temporal heterogeneity. Results: Findings indicate that leaving school was good for health and well-being. Compared with participants who did not find a training position after school, direct transitions to vocational training or university were linked to higher absolute levels of health and well-being, but also to a lower relative decline over time. Furthermore, upward transi-tions (e.g. to programs leading to better education or from unemployment to employment) were associated with improvements in health and well-being, while downward transitions were followed by deteriorations. Conclusion: Findings suggest that school-leave is a sensitive period and that post-secondary pathways provide young people with different abilities to maintain health and well-being. Youth health interventions might benefit when setting a stronger focus on unsuccessful school-leavers.show moreshow less

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Author: Marvin Reuter, Max Herke, Matthias Richter, Katharina Diehl, Stephanie HoffmannORCiD, Claudia R. PischkeORCiD, Nico Dragano
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-14227-0
ISSN:1471-2458
Title of the source (English):BMC Public Health
Document Type:Scientific journal article peer-reviewed
Language:English
Year of publication:2022
Tag:Apprenticeship; Institutional context; NEPS; National Educational Panel Study; Prevocational preparation; School-to-work transition; Self-rated health; Subjective well-being; University; Vocational training
Volume/Year:22
First Page:1
Last Page:13
Article number:1823
Faculty/Chair:Fakultät 4 Humanwissenschaften (bis 2023 Soziale Arbeit, Gesundheit und Musik) / FG Gesundheitswissenschaften
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