The transition from school to work in Flanders: a duration analysis

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to distinguish some of the factors that have an influence on the length of the joblessness period between the school‐leaving date and the start of the first job. Several hypotheses are tested on the basis of a duration model using data on Flemish school leavers. The speed of the transition process is found to be a function of factors that are controllable at relatively low cost, such as search intensity, factors that are manageable at large investments cost, such as the level of education, as well as factors that are outside of control, such as ethnicity.