School-to-Work Transition Survey 2012

Defining the school-to-work transition is a matter worthy of careful consideration since it is the definition that determines the interpretation. Most studies define the transition as the length of time between the exit from education (either upon graduation or early exit without completion) to the first entry into stable employment. But exactly what is meant by “stable employment”? The definition of the term and the subsequent measurement of the transition vary from study to study and from country to country. Some studies take as the endpoint the first moment of employment in any job and others apply qualitative elements such as first stable job (measured by contract type).

The ILO SWTS was designed in a way that applies a stricter definition of “stable employment” than is typically used in the genre. By starting from the premise that a person has not “transited” until settled in a job that meets a very basic criteria of “decency”, namely a permanency that can provide the worker with a sense of security (e.g. a permanent contract), or a job that the worker feels personally satisfied with, the ILO is introducing a new quality element to the standard definition of school-to-work transition.

The main objectives of the CSWTS 2012 are to collect detailed information on the country's employment of persons aged 15-29 years old disaggregated by urban and rural areas. The survey provides information on the national youth employment that can then be used to develop, manage and evaluate youth employment policies and programs.

The CSWTS serves a number of purposes. First, it detects the individual characteristics of young people that determine labour market disadvantage. This, in turn, is instrumental to the development of policy response to prevent the emergence of risk factors, as well as measures to remedy those factors that negatively affect the transition to decent work. Second, it identifies the features of youth labour demand, which help determine mismatches that can be addressed by policy interventions. Third, in countries where the labour market information system is not developed, it serves as an instrument to generate reliable data for policy-making and for monitoring progress towards the achievement of MDG1. In countries with a reasonably developed labour market information system, the survey helps to shed light on areas usually not captured by household-based surveys, such as youth conditions of work, wages and earnings, engagement in the informal economy, access to financial products and difficulties experienced by young people in running their business. Finally, it provides information to governments, the social partners and the donor community on the youth employment areas that require urgent attention. Other specific objectives are:

• Obtain data on personal, family and household information including financial situation, health problems, highest educational level of parents, and occupation of parents.

• Collect data on formal education/training, activities history and aspirations of youth/persons aged 15-29 years, including education and training, the full history of economic activities, the main goal in life, and working criteria.

• Collect data on young workers including personal work details of business or place of work, employment status, wage and salaried workers (employees), self-employed workers, contributing family workers, perception, time related underemployment and other inadequate employment situations, future prospects, training in current activity, and the job search.

• Collect data on unemployed youth including seeking work criteria, length of job search, availability criteria, and details of job search.

• Collect data on youth in education.

• Collect data on youth not in the labour force.