Getting through closed doors? Labour market entry among ethnic minority and majority youth with low levels of formal education

Abstract

The paper analyses the labour market situation among youth with low or medium levels of formal education. The analyses focus on studying the effects of level of competence, grades and immigrant background. Which factors contribute to labour market success among this group of youth? And which factors may increase the risk of not getting into the labour market? The findings indicate that both achieved characteristics, such as grades and level of competence (‘merits’), and ascribed characteristics, such as ethnic background, are important for their labour market opportunities. Among those with the lowest competence level, the ethnic Norwegians do not fare the best. Else, immigrants with non‐Western background have a higher risk of unemployment and a lower rate of employment than the ethnic Norwegians, but second‐generation immigrants have a better situation than first‐generation immigrants.

Keywords:

• education
• labour market
• youth
• immigrants

Notes

1. Sources: Statistics Norway (2008a, 2008b), NAV (2007).

2. The dataset is compiled by raw data from Statistics Norway. Data concerning students in upper secondary education were originally delivered by the county municipalities for this project on behalf of the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training. The data were anonymised before they were delivered from Statistics Norway to the authors.

3. ‘Folk high schools’ are one‐year boarding schools offering a variety of non‐traditional and non‐academic subjects, as well as academic subjects. The folk high schools do not grant degrees or conduct exams. They are a supplement to the regular education system.

4. The estimations are made according to the formula:

where Z = the intercept plus the effects of the control variables (Z = B ₀ + B ₁ X ₁ + B ₂ X ₂…), and j is an expression of the different outcomes on the dependent variable (the logit has j–1 different sets of parameters). The multinomial regression is run by the use of the statistical package SPSS, version 15.

5. However, there is a higher tendency to belong to the ‘other group’ among the non‐European non‐Western immigrants than among the East‐Europeans.

6. There is a higher inclination to proceed directly to higher education among non‐Western immigrants than among ethnic Norwegians (Støren, Helland, and Grøgaard 2007), thus the difference in grades by immigrant background will be larger in favour of the ethnic Norwegians when those who have proceeded to higher education are excluded from the analyses, as they are in our analyses, than if they had not been excluded. The second‐generation immigrants do have an especially high share participating in higher education.

7. The interaction term for grades and immigrant background does not separate between first‐ and second‐generation immigrant because the interaction effect was the practically same for the two groups.