Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The purpose of this survey was to investigate the labour market experiences during the first three years after leaving school of young people living in an area of the Birmingham Conurbation

Main Topics:

Variables Time spent in/number of episodes of employment, unemployment and government shcemes. Experience of employment; type of jobs obtained, methods of obtaining jobs and reasons for leaving; wages and hours worked. Attitudes towards work, unemployment and government schemes. Personal and social background variables; sex, qualifications, family circumstances, parental employment. Training or further education since school leaving. Job search. Truancy at school. Court appearances and outcomes. The cohort under investigation left school aged 16 in 1981. The first stage consisted of interviews with members of the cohort approximately one year after they left school and a further re-contact approximately 6 months later in which information was obtained about their job history since the first interview. In addition, information was obtained during 1981-82 from the local Careers Office. The second stage, involved a second interview with the same cohort approximately three years after they left school. The dataset for the first interview (A) and the careers office information (B) contain important classifying information e.g. sex of respondent; 63 young people from the same cohort who had continued in full-time education for a further year (i.e. they left full-time education in 1982) were interviewed for the first time at second stage. Important classifying information, e.g. sex and qualifications on leaving school, which had been obtained from the bulk of the cohort at the first stage of the study, was obtained from this small group.

No sampling (total universe)

Face-to-face interview