Career education that works: an economic analysis using the British Cohort Study

Abstract

There is significant policy interest in the issue of young people’s fractured transitions into the labour market. Many scholars and policy-makers believe that changes in the education system and labour market over recent decades have created a complex world for young people; and that this can partly be addressed by enhanced career education while individuals are at school. However, the literature lacks in-depth quantitative analysis making use of longitudinal data. This paper draws on the British Cohort Study 1970 to investigate the link between career talks by external speakers and employment outcomes, and finds some evidence that young people who participated in more career talks at age 14–16 enjoyed a wage premium 10 years later at age 26. The correlation is statistically significant on average across all students who receive talks at age 14–15; but remains the case for 15–16 year olds only if they also described the talks as very helpful.

Keywords:

• Employer engagement
• wage premiums
• youth labour market
• careers education
• school-to-work transition

Acknowledgements

We would like to take the opportunity to thank Dr Anthony Mann, Director of Research and Policy at Education and Employers Taskforce and the generous fund he commissioned to complete this work.

Notes

1. Interview with authors, October 30 2014.

2. Interview with authors, August 4 2015.

3. The original variables for reported income contained some identifiable data errors, such as annual salaries miscoded as weekly salaries. The BCS helpfully provides a derived variable, 'net corrected weekly income', which is used in this paper.