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This study examines the role of a wide range of personality characteristics—such as the Big Five personality traits, self-esteem, goal pursuit/adjustment, social behavior, and educational aspirations—for the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment in Germany, and compares their relative importance with that of cognitive skills. We use information on more than 8,000 students from the German National Educational Panel Study. We find that personality characteristics do not mediate the association between parents’ and children’s attainment of the university entrance qualification (the Abitur) by age 19/20. Only educational aspirations are a strong mediator for intergenerational educational transmission. A few personality characteristics moderate intergenerational educational transmission, and they do so in favor of children with high-educated parents either as Matthew effects or compensatory advantages. In contrast to personality characteristics, cognitive skills act as strong mediators, while moderation is rather weak when accounting for personality characteristics—but again, they work in favor of privileged children. Our German study reveals similarities but also differences compared with the mostly U.S.- and U.K.-based research and inspires to rethink the importance of personality characteristics and cognitive skills for intergenerational education attainment.

This article demonstrates the disadvantages that students leaving special needs schools ( Förderschule) face in their school-to-work transition in Germany. We analyse whether the institutional label of ‘having attended a special needs school’ – beyond and above low school attainment – results in scarring effects for students’ chances of integration into training and employment after leaving school. We focus on students classified as having learning disability ( Lernbehinderung), the largest group among students with special educational needs (SEN) and examine their NEET risk compared to equally low-attaining students from general schools at age 20/21. The analyses are based on rare longitudinal data for SEN students, the German National Educational Panel Study. Employing matching and regression techniques, we find that the label of ‘having attended a special needs school’ does generate long-term scars above and beyond low school attainment. However, this is only the case for school leavers with a lower secondary school certificate but not for those without school certificate.

Many countries have implemented youth (un)employment programmes for low-achieving young people to improve their employment prospects. In Germany, these youths are often channelled into prevocational programmes to prevent them from long-term ‘scars’ by providing a ‘second chance’ to enter apprenticeships (serving as entry into the labour market in Germany). However, the usefulness of these programmes is contested. It remains unclear whether it is (more) useful for young people to invest in education and improve formal qualifications (to send a positive ‘signal’) or to spend more time in firms (e.g. to counteract possible discrimination processes or to generate new network ties). It is also unclear who benefits most depending on previous school-leaving certificates. We address these questions by using rich data from the German National Educational Panel Study and apply entropy balancing as a matching approach to control for selection. We find that both attaining a higher school certificate and spending time in firms improve low-achieving youth’s chances to enter apprenticeships. However, only those who attained a higher-level school certificate are able to enter higher-status training occupations afterwards. Moreover, prevocational programmes are most beneficial for the most disadvantaged.

School leavers with low educational attainment face great difficulties in their school-to-work transitions. They are, however, quite heterogeneous in terms of their personal and social resources. These within-group differences may influence who shows initiative during the school-to-work transition period and thereby helps employers recognize their learning potential at labor market entry. Yet this recognition also depends on the ways employers select applicants, which may prevent them from discovering such within-group differences. We therefore investigate the interplay between agency and its constraints, that is, whether higher cognitive and noncognitive skills and more parental resources provide low-achieving school leavers with new opportunities in the school-to-work transition period or whether their low school attainment causes the persistency of their disadvantages. We use panel data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), which started in grade 9. The NEPS also includes school leavers from special-needs schools. Our sample consists of 3417 low-achieving adolescents (42% female), defined as adolescents who leave school with no or only a lower secondary school-leaving certificate. Their average school-leaving age is 16 to 17 years. Our key findings are that the transition period opens up new opportunities only for those low-achieving adolescents with better vocational orientation and higher career aspirations, leading them to make stronger application efforts. The success of youth’s initiative varies considerably by school-leaving certificate and school type but not by competences, noncognitive characteristics, and parental background. Thus, the label of “having low qualifications” is a major obstacle in this transition period - especially for the least educated subgroup. Their poor school attainment strongly disadvantages them when accessing the required training to become economically independent and hence in their general transition to adulthood. Our results are also of interest internationally, because participation in firm-based training programs functions as the entry labor market in Germany. Thus, similar explanations may apply to low-achieving adolescents' difficulties in finding a job.

Stage 6 of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) 6 is devoted to the transition of young people from school to work. Stage 6 focuses in particular on the transition from school to vocational education and training and then to work (for tertiary education, see Chap. 16). In all Western societies, vocational education and training (VET) systems face a number of challenges, including the need to adapt to increasing skill requirements across the economy and to handle the danger of producing an “underclass” of low-skilled youth. This chapter presents the life-course approach for investigating school-leavers’ pathways from school into the labor market within NEPS. Several factors shape young people’s school-to-work transitions: their motivation and competence endowment, their decisions to apply for specific educational programs, the constraints they face regarding the opportunities for VET programs and the gatekeepers’ recruitment behavior, the information and support youths may or may not receive from social networks, and the learning environments they encounter in firms and schools. We outline the basic theories that guide our research concerning these influences and discuss how we take them into account within NEPS Stage 6. Thus, we provide an overview of the study’s research potential in the area of VET. For now, it is mainly the Scientific Use Files of Starting Cohort 4 (SC4) that provide ample opportunities for innovative interdisciplinary analyses—including analyses of students from special education schools. As the starting cohorts age, Starting Cohort 3 (SC3) has now also entered NEPS Stage 6 and its data on VET transitions will soon be available as well. Wie andere westliche Länder steht auch Deutschland vor zahlreichen Herausforderungen im Bereich der beruflichen Bildung. Dazu gehören der demografische Wandel, das Schritthalten mit den steigenden Qualifikationsanforderungen der Arbeitswelt sowie die Verringerung von Bildungsarmut, d.h. die Reduzierung der Zahl ausbildungsloser und schlecht ausgebildeter Jugendlicher. Etappe 6 des Nationalen Bildungspanels widmet sich diesen Themen und untersucht die Übergänge Jugendlicher von der Schule in die berufliche Bildung und in den Arbeitsmarkt. Das Kapitel stellt den zugrunde liegenden Lebensverlaufsansatz dieser Etappe des Nationalen Bildungspanels vor. In kumulativer Hinsicht werden diese Übergänge durch zahlreiche Faktoren beeinflusst: durch die Motivation und die Kompetenzausstattung der Jugendlichen, durch ihre Bildungsentscheidungen, durch die Einschränkungen, die aus dem Ausbildungsplatzangebot und dem Einstellungsverhalten von Gatekeepern resultieren, durch die Information und Unterstützung, die Jugendliche durch ihre sozialen Netzwerke erhalten oder nicht, und durch die Lernumwelten in Betrieben und Schulen. Wir skizzieren die wichtigsten Theorien, die die Wirkungsweise dieser Faktoren definieren, und diskutieren, wie sie im Rahmen der Datenerhebung von Etappe 6 berücksichtigt werden. Dies ermöglicht einen Überblick über das Potenzial der so erhobenen Längsschnittdaten für die Berufsbildungsforschung. Bisher bieten die Scientific Use Files der Startkohorte 4 (SC4) zahlreiche Möglichkeiten für innovative und interdisziplinäre Analysen – darin eingeschlossen erstmalig die Möglichkeit, für eine deutschlandweite Stichprobe die Übergänge von ehemaligen Förderschülerinnen und Förderschülern untersuchen zu können. Aufgrund des Alterns der Befragten in den NEPS-Stichproben ist mittlerweile auch die Startkohorte 3 in der Bildungsetappe 6 angekommen. Deren Daten zu beruflichen Übergängen werden in Kürze als Scientific Use Files ebenfalls verfügbar sein.

Jugendliche ohne Mittleren Schulabschluss besuchen nach Verlassen der Schule oft Maßnahmen im Übergangsbereich des beruflichen Bildungssystems. In unserem Beitrag untersuchen wir mit Daten des Nationalen Bildungspanels, was sie aus solchen Maßnahmen für ihren weiteren Bildungsweg mitnehmen können. Wir betrachten Entwicklungen in drei Bereichen: Nachholen von Schulabschlüssen, Sammeln von betrieblichen Erfahrungen und Entwicklung des Bewerbungsverhaltens auf Ausbildungsplätze. Wir untersuchen zum einen, wer unter den Schulabgängerinnen und -abgängern ohne Mittleren Schulabschluss in Übergangsmaßnahmen Fortschritte in diesen drei Bereichen macht, und zum anderen, ob die Teilnehmenden dadurch ihre Ausbildungschancen nach Maßnahmenende verbessern können. Unsere Ergebnisse bestätigen, dass alle drei Entwicklungen den Ausbildungszugang erleichtern können. Die Jugendlichen nutzen die Teilnahme an Übergangsmaßnahmen jedoch auf unterschiedliche Weise: Während jene mit vergleichsweise günstigen Ausgangsbedingungen häufiger Schulabschlüsse nachholen, sammeln jene mit schlechteren Ausgangsbedingungen eher betriebliche Erfahrungen und verbessern ihr Bewerbungsverhalten. In Germany, school leavers without an intermediate school-leaving certificate often enter so-called prevocational programs. In this article, we use data from the German National Educational Panel Study to investigate whether and how these young people can benefit from these programs in their further educational careers. We focus on three potential developments: catching up on school-leaving certificates, establishing linkages to firms, and improving one’s application behavior. First, we ask who among the school leavers achieves development in these three areas during program participation. Second, we analyze if these developments are helpful for entering vocational training afterwards. We show that developments in all three areas are connected to better chances to enter vocational training. However, young people make different use of prevocational programs: While those with better starting conditions are more likely to catch up on school-leaving certificates during these programs, those with poorer starting conditions mainly establish linkages to firms and improve their application behavior.

Absolventen des dualen Systems der Berufsausbildung in Deutschland haben unterschiedlich gute Chancen auf einen direkten Übergang in horizontal und vertikal adäquate Arbeitsmarktpositionen. Der Artikel diskutiert die Rolle von strukturellen Merkmalen von Ausbildungsberufen für diese unterschiedlichen Chancen. Der Fokus liegt auf drei Merkmalen: die durchschnittlichen Ausbildungskosten, der Grad der beruflichen Schließung und die Breite der Qualifikationen. Anhand von Daten des Nationalen Bildungspanels (NEPS) wird die erste Arbeitsmarktposition von betrieblich Ausgebildeten der Abschlussjahrgänge 1974 bis 2004 in Westdeutschland untersucht. Indikatoren für die beruflichen Merkmale werden mit Daten der BIBB-Kosten-Nutzen-Erhebungen und der BIBB/IAB-Erwerbstätigenbefragungen gebildet und den Individualdaten zugespielt. Mithilfe von multinomialen logistischen Regressionsmodellen wird der Einfluss der Berufsmerkmale auf die Wahrscheinlichkeit untersucht, überhaupt eine Erwerbstätigkeit zu finden sowie horizontal und vertikal adäquate Positionen zu erreichen. Es zeigt sich, dass die betrachteten Merkmale des Ausbildungsberufs für betrieblich Ausgebildete unterschiedliche Optionen sowohl innerhalb des erlernten Berufs als auch in anderen Berufen eröffnen. Der Artikel leistet einen Beitrag zu unserem Verständnis dafür, wie berufliche Merkmale individuelle Arbeitsmarktchancen strukturieren und zeigt langfristige Konsequenzen von ungleichen Zugangschancen zu Ausbildungsberufen auf. Graduates of the German dual system of vocational education and training differ in their chances of directly entering horizontally and vertically matching labour market positions. This article discusses how structural characteristics of training occupations impact such differences. I focus on three characteristics: the average training costs, the degree of occupational closure and how broadly applicable the qualifications are. Using data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), I analyse the first labour market position for individuals who graduated from apprenticeship training between 1974 and 2004 in West Germany. I develop measures for occupational characteristics based on data from the BIBB Cost Benefit Studies and the BIBB/IAB Employment Surveys and merge these measures with the individual-level data. Applying multinomial logistic regression models, I simultaneously analyse the influence of the occupational characteristics on the probability to find employment in the first place and to reach horizontally and vertically matching positions. The results show that the occupational characteristics provide different opportunities within the training occupation but also within other occupations. The article, thus, helps us understand how occupational characteristics structure individual labour market chances and sheds light on the long-term consequences of unequal access to training occupations.