Pathways from school to work: A sequence analysis of non-engaged youth

INTRODUCTION

Research on heterogeneous pathways in school-to-work transitions (SWT), particularly longitudinal research, has been limited, as have empirical studies examining effective interventions for facilitating multiple SWT pathways among non-engaged youth (NEY), who are generally at risk of being not in education, employment, or training (NEET).

METHODS

To develop a typology of SWT pathways, we conducted sequence analysis with longitudinal data from a sample of 630 NEY aged 14-29 (M = 19.78; 63.65% males) in Hong Kong during a 22-month period beginning in September 2020. We also performed multinomial logistic regressions to assess the impact of career and life development (CLD) interventions on SWT outcomes.

RESULTS

Our analysis yielded a fivefold typology of SWT pathways: the Employment/Entrepreneurship cluster (31.27%), the Vocational Education and Training cluster (13.49%), the Generic Education cluster (16.83%), the Serious Leisure Development cluster (15.24%), and the long-term NEET cluster (23.17%). NEY in the intervention group receiving CLD services, inspired by the expanded notion of work (ENOW) and youth development and intervention framework (YDIF), demonstrated significantly higher likelihoods of being in the Employment/Entrepreneurship (OR = 34.5, 95% CI [10.53, 105.08]), Generic Education (OR = 3.74, 95% CI [1.81, 7.74]), Vocational Education and Training (OR = 1.55, 95% CI [1.05, 6.26]), and Serious Leisure Development (OR = 1.77, 95% CI [1.04, 4.46]) clusters than the long-term NEET cluster.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings highlight the dynamic, heterogeneous nature of NEY's CLD journeys, including that CLD interventions based on ENOW-YDIF have had a beneficial effect on NEY's multiple SWT pathways.

A network approach to the relationship between career adaptability and starting salary among graduates

Career adaptability is a psychological resource for individuals to deal with career events, and it is a system of human-environment interaction. The components of the career adaptability concept are not independent of each other but rather an interactive network. The present study aims to shed light on the nomological network of career adaptability and the starting salary by investigating their indicators using network analysis to reveal their structural networks and interrelationships. In addition, we compared the similarities and differences between the networks of different gender groups. Results indicate that career adaptability directly connects to starting salary for graduates, and some indicators are the core factors that influence starting salary. Besides, the global structure of gender-specific networks is very similar. However, some differences have been detected, such as becoming curious about new opportunities is the male network's core, while the core of the female network is doing the right thing.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-023-04655-5.

Employability Development during Internships: A Three-Wave Study on a Sample of Psychology Graduates in Italy

This study adopts a resource perspective to investigate the development of graduates’ resource-based employability across a 1-year internship. We examined factors referring to agency (job crafting in the form of crafting challenges and crafting resources) and context (organizational social socialization tactics) as mechanisms contributing to employability development during initial work experiences (internships). Data were collected in Italy from 316 master graduates in psychology at three time points. Longitudinal structural equation modeling results showed that baseline employability was positively associated with job crafting. However, job crafting was only significantly associated with employability at the end of the internship among those reporting high crafting resources and medium-to-high organizational social socialization tactics. Hence, beyond a focus on proactivity only, organizational support and opportunities to form social networks are essential to sustain interns’ employability development.

How Career Exploration Affects Employment Outcomes: A Two-Wave Study Among Young Chinese Adults

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