Long-term labour market consequences of dropping out of upper secondary school

Abstract

In this study, I compare the labour market outcomes of school completers and school dropouts 10 years after they have entered upper secondary education. I compare second-generation immigrant youth from Turkey, Morocco, Pakistan, Vietnam, India and Chile with native majority youth in terms of economic inactivity, employment probability and educational enrolment. I use register data from Statistics Norway, which contain information on all students who entered upper secondary school between 1994 and 1998. The results show that youths who drop out of school have a lower probability of being employed than school completers. However, the labour market penalty of dropping out is not more excessive among second-generation immigrant youth than among native majority youth.