Policies to Enhance Transition to Work

This chapter highlights the continued struggles faced by Canadian youth in their transition from school to work. In July 2016 the unemployment rate for youth (aged 15–24) in Canada stood at 13.3% compared to the general unemployment rate of 6.9%. Many young people under the age of 30 who are employed are working in increasingly precarious conditions (e.g., temporary, contract, part-time, or low paid) or nonpermanent jobs. In this chapter, the authors focus particularly upon recent secondary school-based policy developments in Canada aimed at enhancing the transition from school to work for youth. They specifically focus our analysis on the country’s most populous province, Ontario, and demonstrate how the policy context in Ontario has prompted several initiatives and programs to support youth in transition from school to meaningful work.

Romantic Relationships and the Transition to Work

In this chapter, the authors address intersections between romantic relationship factors and the transition to work experience. They briefly summarize the nature of romantic relationships during emerging adulthood and then review research conducted around the world, which reveals that these two aspects of a person’s life are closely intertwined during emerging adulthood. They describe the ways romantic relationship development and career development have been found to influence each other and the concerns that many emerging adults have about balancing their goals in these two areas of life. Drawing on this literature, they make several recommendations for practitioners who are assisting emerging adults to make an optimal transition to work in the context of their romantic relationships. Finally, the authors use a case study, drawn from research conducted by the first author, to illustrate how the principles discussed in this review can manifest in the lives of one emerging adult couple.

Smooth, Staggered, or Stopped?

Year on year, incremental progress is the gold standard of education. While policies are in place to address any possible anticipated interruption in overall learner journeys, smooth transitions through an individual’s schooling career are a key aim for education programs the world over. New analysis from a longitudinal study of South African youth suggests that just under half of all learners are following this smooth type of pathway through schooling, with the rest following three other distinct progression routes. This chapter provides the first in-depth look at what young people are doing, how they move through the education system, and how background and school-level characteristics influence those pathways. The study attempts to look beyond the predictable pattern of “achievement begetting achievement” and demonstrates that educational expectations matter and that the school attended need not. Together, the results paint a complex picture of educational transitions where advantage operates but so too does the notion of “beating the odds.”

Ready, Set, Go!

One key career transition during emerging adulthood is the school-to-work transition. As careers have become much more dynamic and complex, this particular has also become more challenging for young adults. In this chapter, the authors explain how the school-to-work transition has changed and how individual agency and structural factors can interact to lay an early foundation for sustainable career development. In line with this, the authors argue that career competencies and employability are crucial concepts for today’s school-to-work transition. Finally, they look forward to how future research might contribute to further understanding the contemporary school-to-work transition. In all, this chapter argues that an adaptive school-to-work transition is crucial as a building block for long-term sustainability of careers.

It Wasn’t Sheer Luck After All

Evidence suggests that chance plays an important role in careers. Instead of describing such events through “sheer luck,” the authors propose in this theoretical and empirical chapter that opportunity and preparation helps explain the occurrence, perception, and selection of chance events. Study 1 used longitudinal data on 390 emerging adults who reported the occurrence of chance events in their school-to-work transition. Supporting the hypotheses, participants who had prepared better for the school-to-work transition and had better opportunities (in terms of their social network) experienced more chance events. Study 2 examined the perception and selection of chance events in a lab setting. Sixty-seven emerging adult applicants for an actual position were exposed to the same chance events. Consistent with hypotheses, better prepared job applicants were more likely to select these events. Instead of sheer luck, the authors suggest that job seekers can create serendipity by capitalizing on chance events.

University-to-Work Transition for Emerging Adult International Students in Canada

This chapter explores the contextual layers associated with emerging adult international students during their university-to-work transition. First, the authors examine the term, emerging adulthood, to consider the relevance for use with international students. Next, they discuss cultural identity development theories that can be applied to international students. Included is a look at how popular dualistic theories that position Western cultures as primarily individualistic and Eastern cultures as collectivist may be no longer relevant. Further, they explore theories that provide evidence that social identity is fluid and contingent on comparisons to both in-groups and out-groups. Thus, each time an international student finds themselves in a new context with different people, they need to renegotiate their identities and their sense of belonging. In this exploration, the authors also delve into how social capital theory—the benefit one derives from belonging to social groups, networks, or institutions—may be conceptualized with international students, and they show how social support and social capital are closely intertwined. In discussing the importance of personal ties, such as family and friends, they explore the nuances of local and home support. Regarding institutional support, they discuss the critical importance of university faculty and supervisors in becoming a new source of social capital and in creating new bridging relationships and social networks in the destination country. Through our examination of international students’ university-to-career transition, the authors broaden and deepen the current understanding by unpacking the contextual layers of emerging adulthood, identity development, social relationships, and social capital.

The Transition to Adulthood for Individuals With Intellectual Disability

The transition from school to work is a time of excitement and uncertainty for many emerging adults. However, young people with intellectual disability (ID) face unique challenges with this transition. They often need a great deal more support in the activities of daily living, learning, and work. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the transition to adulthood and work through the lens of the intentional, goal-directed processes engaged in by the emerging adult with ID and their families. This examination will involve contextual action theory as the conceptual framework and the relevant literature on emerging adults with ID that speaks to this important transition in its particular social context. Through this framework, a deeper understanding is gained of the meaning involved in the actions that emerging adults and their families take as they navigate the transition to adulthood and work.

Vocational Education and Youth Labor Market Integration

The transition from school to work is a crucial change young people experience during emerging adulthood, as the first steps taken into the labor market can influence future labor market careers and life prospects. One of the key responsibilities of education is to prepare students for the labor market, in which the vocational specificity of education systems is regarded as the central component in youth’s preparation for and allocation to the labor market. Despite many empirical studies examining the underlying mechanisms of the vocational impact of education on youth labor market integration, a review on this vast literature is lacking. Hence, in this chapter the authors provide a literature review on the role of vocational specificity in youth labor market integration, which operates through the individual level, study program level, and education system level. Moreover, a coherent system of indicators that measure vocational specificity at the three levels is provided.

School Experiences and Postschool Pathways in the Republic of Ireland

This chapter draws on a mixed methods longitudinal study of a cohort of young adults in Ireland who were followed from their entry to secondary education to their outcomes three to four years after completing upper secondary education. In keeping with previous international research, the study findings show that the main pathways taken by young people reflect their gender, social class background, and academic performance. However, the analyses go further than previous work by indicating the way in which the nature of postschool transitions are firmly embedded in earlier school experiences. In particular, the chapter contributes to the ongoing debate on the effects of school composition to show that school social mix has a very significant impact on postschool outcomes, with those who attended middle-class schools having particularly high levels of participation in higher education. This is consistent with higher education assuming a ‘taken for granted’ quality in middle-class schools. In contrast, young people who had attended working-class schools are much more likely than those in middle-class or socially mixed schools to enter the labor market directly upon leaving school, even taking account of their exam grades. School climate plays an important role, with negative relations with teachers serving to discourage young people from remaining on in any form of education/training. The chapter concludes by highlighting the implications of the findings for our understanding of youth transitions and for policy designed to improve equity of outcomes.

Narrative Approach to Career Identity Development

Examining the impact of family on young peoples’ vocational identity is very important in cultural contexts of Mediterranean countries, where young adults tend to live with their parents for a prolonged time. In the Italian context, living with parents in their 20s and 30s is associated with a specific “delay syndrome” in the transition to adulthood that increases identity instability and hinders career plans. Starting from the historical background of vocational identity and delay syndrome in Italy, the chapter highlights the parental influence on Italian youth’s career development. Specifically, assuming that career construction is a co-constructed process in which parents can be interpreted as identity agents, the chapter presents and discusses the main results of research in the Italian context and proposes a descriptive model of vocational identity co-authoring between parents and young people.