Abstract
In this Thesis data from The Scottish Education Data Archive, relating to the
1977, 1979, 1981 and 1983 Scottish School Leavers Surveys, are used in order
to examine Scottish young people's post-school destinations. The major
change, over the period 1977-83, was a dramatic decline in the proportion
entering employment. Most of the material in the Thesis is directly concerned
with school leavers' employment.
In the introductory chapter, the scene is set for the rest of the Thesis and
three proposed explanations of the decline in youth employment are critically
reviewed; they are: the real wage, the demand deficiency and the structural
hypotheses. The introductory chapter concludes with a discussion of the
Scottish Education Data Archive. The second and third chapters contain an
examination of the changes in Scottish school leavers' industrial and
occupational distributions of employment, respectively. The fourth chapter
examines the role played by changes in the industrial distribution of school
leavers' employment in determining the changes in their occupational
distribution of employment. The fifth chapter examines the extent to which the
decline in school leavers' employment was disproportionately large, compared
to the decline in all ages' employment, and the extent to which this resulted
from either structural change or school leavers' particularly vulnerable labour
market position. The sixth chapter examines the question of whether the
bottom has dropped out of the market for school leavers' labour. The seventh
chapter contains an econometric examination of the role played by a measure
of school leaver's employment prospects, amongst other factors, in influencing
their decisions as to whether to continue into full-time tertiary education.
