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Population aging is exacerbating the loss of competences in the workforce and simultaneously young people neither in employment nor in education and training (NEETs) are struggling to be reengaged in employment. These issues, which are deemed priorities for the European policy agenda, could be addressed by triggering active aging dimensions, valuing and exploiting older adult entrepreneurs' knowledge for enhancing youngsters' entrepreneurial attitudes, through mentoring. This paper reports the results of a study based on an intergenerational learning program, carried out in 2018 in Germany, Italy and Slovenia. The study was aimed at developing and testing one training on mentoring addressing 41 older adult entrepreneurs (55 and over), and two intergenerational learning trainings aiming at boosting entrepreneurial competences of 33 NEETs (aged 18–29). The impact of the program on older adult entrepreneurs and NEETs was assessed through a pre and post-evaluation using qualitative and quantitative tools. Findings at country level were treated as national case-studies and then the latter were compared by considering them as a multiple embedded case-study. Results indicated that, to different extent in the study countries, mentors learned and enhanced mentoring competences, e.g. active listening and the capability of orienting, improved well-being and self-esteem, social inclusion and active aging attitude. Moreover, NEETs acquired entrepreneurial and socio-relational competences by benefiting from the full exploitation of mentors' know-how and the trust relationship with them. Companies, trade unions, educational and voluntary organizations should cooperate to adopt intergenerational learning programs as good practices for older adults and NEETs' lifelong learning promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: This paper presents part of the work undertaken by the European Network for Technology Enhanced Learning in an Inclusive Society (ENTELIS) to respond to the need for bridging the digital divide. It is based on previous evidence of lack of digital skills of people with disabilities of all ages to effectively participate in the digital society. OBJECTIVE: The paper aims to present the results of an exploratory study conducted in different European countries in order to identify needs, barriers, opportunities and good practices. METHODS: Data collection included the collection of experiences and best practices, and interviews conducted with different groups of people with disabilities of all ages and other stakeholders in five countries. RESULTS: Results emphasize the vital role of ICT-AT for independence, social integration, educational success, employment opportunities, and overall quality of life, while there seems to be heterogeneity in the way technology is considered and utilized among various groups of PwD. A number of challenges and barriers for ICT-AT competence development are also identified. CONCLUSIONS: Considerations and suggestions for further research, for policy and for practice implications are discussed, mainly focused on reducing the abandonment of ICT-AT, on responding to user's heterogeneous needs and on strengthening facilitating factors for the acquisition of digital competencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: NEETs (young people not in employment, education or training) are at higher risk for poorer mental and physical health. In France, the Missions locales (MLs) are the only social structures dedicated to this population. We sought to determine whether the systematic offer of a social and preventive medicine consultation at a ML might increase NEET participants’ access to training in the 12 months following the intervention. Methods: This intervention research was a parallel randomised controlled interventional study conducted at five MLs in mainland France in 2011–2012. It included 976 NEETs aged 18 to 25 years who attended one of the five MLs. At inclusion, participants were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to three groups: those in the first group were invited to see a social worker (not studied in this paper), those in the second group were invited to see a doctor and a social worker (intervention group), and the third was a control group. The primary outcome was participation in at least one training session during the year following study inclusion. Results: Among the 976 participants, 504 were randomly assigned to the intervention group and 472 to the control group; 704 (72.1%) were included in the analyses. A significantly higher proportion of the participants in the intervention group participated in a training session in the 12 months following the intervention than of those in the control group (63.3% vs 55.6%; p = 0.04). This difference was significantly greater for women, those less than 21 years of age, those unstably housed and those with a lower level of education. Conclusions: Social and preventive medicine consultations that are fully integrated into the social services for NEETs have an impact on their access to training and contribute to changing some of their health-related behaviours. This may improve their access to the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many current national and institutional education policies address the issue of raising participation amongst young people and enhancing employability after leaving school or university. What sort of information are these policies built on? This paper compares national information systems from the last three decades across Europe that gather information on school leavers' and graduates' pathways after compulsory education. Using documentary data collected systematically the paper describes the main focus, the research design and the sampling frame of the school leavers' and graduates' information systems (SLGIS) arriving at several different typologies. This paper gives an overall picture of what sort of research is conducted within the area of school leaving and graduation and points out the advantages and disadvantages of the different approaches. Beyond these, the paper gives an indication of how the school leavers’ and graduates’ data are used within the different European contexts and points towards the next steps of this meta-research: case-studies on how the school leavers' and graduates' data are applied at the national and the institutional level. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While increasing female employment has contributed to reducing gender inequality, it has also exposed women to higher economic insecurity. The contribution of this paper is to understand the social conditions that might expose women to economic insecurity in different European cities. Specific aspects have been considered: (a) reduced (part time) work, (b) hampered labour-market participation (unemployment, involuntary inactivity due to care tasks), (c) different household structures (single/couple; with/without young children) or (d) educational level of both partners in the household. Data are based on a survey carried out in 2012 in seven European cities, representative of the different welfare/gender regimes in Europe. The results show that the most important divide is between women cohabiting/not cohabiting with a partner. Splitting the analysis on these two groups of women, differentiated configurations of conditions exposing women to economic insecurity have emerged in different welfare/care regimes. While Nordic, Central-eastern and Anglo-Saxon cities substantiate an individualised model of exposure to economic insecurity mostly driven by women’s participation in the labour market, in Continental and Mediterranean cities insecurity mainly depends on the educational levels (mainly of the partner in the case of coupled women) and the organisation of the household (presence of children). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to examine educational inequalities in the risk of non-employment among people with illnesses and how they vary between European countries with different welfare state characteristics. In doing so, the paper adds to the growing literature on welfare states and social inequalities in health by studying the often overlooked ‘sickness’-dimension of health, namely employment behaviour among people with illnesses. We use European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) data from 2005 covering 26 European countries linked to country characteristics derived from Eurostat and OECD that include spending on active labour market policies, benefit generosity, income inequality, and employment protection. Using multilevel techniques we find that comprehensive welfare states have lower absolute and relative social inequalities in sickness, as well as more favourable general rates of non-employment. Hence, regarding sickness, welfare resources appear to trump welfare disincentives. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Purpose -- This paper uses a unique survey of Roma and non-Roma in South Eastern Europe with the aim of evaluating competing explanations for the poor performance of Roma in the labour market. Design/methodology/approach -- Following a descriptive analysis, econometric models are employed to identify the determinants of educational achievement, employment and wages for Roma and non-Roma. Limited information maximum likelihood (LIML) methods are employed to control for endogenous schooling and two sources of sample selection bias in the estimates. Non-linear and linear decomposition techniques are applied in order to identify the extent of discrimination. Findings -- The key results are that: the employment returns to education are lower for Roma than for non-Roma whilst the wage returns are broadly similar for the two groups; the similar wage gains translate into a smaller absolute wage gain for Roma than for non-Roma given their lower average wages; the marginal absolute gains from education for Roma are only a little over one-third of the marginal absolute gains to education for majority populations; and, there is evidence to support the idea that a substantial part of the differential in labour market outcomes is due to discrimination. Research limitations/implications -- The survey data employed do not include information on hours worked. In order to partially control for this, the analysis of wages is limited to employee wages excluding the self-employed. Practical implications -- Explanations of why Roma fare so badly tend to fall into one of two camps: the "low education" and the "discrimination" schools. The analysis suggests that both of these explanations have some basis in fact. Moreover, a direct implication of the lower absolute returns to education accruing to Roma is that their lower educational participation is, at least in part, due to rational economic calculus. Consequently, policy needs to address both low educational participation and labour market discrimination contemporaneously. Originality/value -- This is the first paper to attempt to econometrically distinguish between discrimination and educational explanations of Roma disadvantage in the labour market in Central and Eastern Europe. The survey data employed are unique and appropriate for the task. Unusually for analyses dealing with returns to education, the LIML econometric approach employed controls for both endogenous schooling and two sources of sample selection bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes the phenomenon of offshore outsourcing and relates it to the history and current state of engineering education and the engineering profession in Europe and the USA. In order to assess the climate affecting employment decisions by and about engineers we have used as sources mostly the serious press, with an emphasis on material dating from 2004 forward. The authors conclude that despite anxiety about the out-migration of engineering and technical jobs to places such as India and China, there is reason to see offshoring as the result of Western investment in capacity building in developing countries and to believe that the creation of new jobs will outpace the rate of job loss in Europe and the USA. The paper should serve as a prod to policy-makers and educators to set about creating an environment in which highly educated engineers and technical employees can continue a pattern of economic revitalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I am applying a rights-based approach to childhood social exclusion that, following Sen's capability approach as one formulation of such a rights-based approach, sees social exclusion as the failure of people to have access to critical capabilities relating to their integration into society. The implications of this approach will then be applied to the relation between education and social exclusion, where it is shown that education has a critical impact on mitigating or reinforcing social exclusion. Taking such a capabilities-based approach implies a shift away from a concentration on average achievement generated by an education system to the low end of the achievement distribution and the ability of the education system to raise the performance and integrate the most disadvantaged students. The paper investigates how education systems in Europe and other industrialized countries are achieving this goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how children of immigrants from Turkey are integrated into Swedish society. The educational achievements and labour market outcomes of this group are compared with the performance of the offspring of native-born parents. The aim of the study is to explore whether we can observe a tendency towards ‘downward mobility’ among young people of immigrant background in Sweden and thereby provide reflections on the existing formulation of the ‘segmented assimilation’ theory. Findings show that descendants of immigrants seemnotto be in the process of downward assimilation, that is, social exclusion and therefore formation of a distinct ‘underclass’ in Sweden. The concept of ‘subordinate inclusion’ is a more appropriate description of the experiences of children of immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Based on a survey conducted among the students of the Polytechnic in Pozega (Administrative Study, Accounting, Commerce, Viticulture-Oenology-Pomology and Food Technology) the paper deals with students' attitudes towards foreign language acquisition during their education, their views on the acquired knowledge, as well as the importance of the foreign language for their future employment. The main aim of this survey was to determine the opinion of students on benefits of learning the foreign language in course of their schooling. The second aim was to determine if there was a difference in the opinion between students of different study groups towards foreign language learning, and if there was a different perception of the importance of foreign language. Taking current promotion of student mobility in European HE institutions into consideration, the opinion on prospects of a semester study abroad and the possibility of employment abroad have been presented in the light of knowledge of foreign languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper questions how video game players evolve to become video game developers and entrepreneurs. It also questions how this can best be documented so as to inform the video game industry which is recognised as a key entity in the European economic, education and employment future. Market growth in respect of video game sales, innovation, and research and development is introduced in our opening overview of the industry. This is followed by an analysis of the characteristics of the players and their motivation with related evaluation of their management of real versus virtual aspects of the gameplay. The conclusions reflect upon video game development as a vocation and the potential advantages that gamers have over their counterparts in the business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — The purpose of this paper is to analyse the extent to which the quality of the jobs of low-skilled young workers is affected by the structure of education and training systems in various European countries. It focuses on the differences between countries providing fairly general education (internal labour market (ILM) contexts) and countries offering more specific vocational education (occupational labour market (OLM) contexts). Design/methodology/approach — Logistic regression analyses. Findings — It is found that low-skilled young workers are worse off in OLM countries than in ILM ones, with respect to employment in a permanent job, employment in a non-elementary job and participation in continuing vocational training. However, in OLM countries low-skilled young workers are less often involuntary part-time employed than those in ILM countries. With regard to participation in continuing vocational training, the ILM-OLM contrast is larger in manufacturing than in services; regarding employment in a permanent job the reverse is true. Originality/value — It is shown that the labour market position of low-skilled young workers is affected by the structure of education and training systems in various European countries. The upgrading of the skills demanded in the European ‘knowledge economies’ will therefore have less severe consequences for low-skilled young workers in ILM countries than in OLM countries, since the acquisition of occupationally specific skills is organized differently between the two institutional contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]