Youth unemployment: reassessing the role of education and labour market institutions. A comparative analysis across countries and generations

Youth have been increasingly at the centre of the public debate of the recent years, complicit the economic crisis that hit them disproportionally and almost six years later still exhibit its persistent effects. The roots of this phenomenon go back far beyond the crisis, being structurally embedded in the cultural, economic and institutional characteristics of the countries. Young people hard times are often compared (and sometimes opposed) to the conditions of other generations, that, though strongly affected by the economic crisis, are proving to be more resilient, given a (generally) stronger “safety net” provided by greater stability and protection. Despite the great consensus existing on the fact that larger activity and employment rates for all age groups are beneficial for the society as a whole, some recent policy proposals in Europe, alarmed by the risk of a “lost generation”, seem a revival of the old “lump sum of labour” theory predicting youth and old as substitute and competitors for a fixed amount of jobs in the labour market. In this view, the present contribution aims at reassessing the institutional determinants of youth unemployment in the industrialised countries of the OECD from 1980 to 2009, in order to shed light on the long-term institutional factors hindering (or vice versa improving) youth labour market outcomes, with a focus, besides traditional labour market institutions, on the role of school-to-work transition. Empirically, the research stresses the importance of filling the skills and productivity gap by experiencing work during studies, especially by means of training contracts. Moreover, in view of the above mentioned recent policy proposals calling for job sharing between young and elderly, this contribution aims at reassessing at the comparative level the nature of the youth/old relationship in the labour market, with the aim of testing if evidence of the “boxed economy” prediction has to be found or if such dualism is only imaginary.