Early school leaving and labour market inclusion in the Nordic countries

Existing research on labour market entry has largely ignored the consequences of the different ways in which upper secondary education is organized. This chapter contributes to rectifying this gap by evaluating whether prospects for labour market inclusion among vocational school dropouts differ depending on the type of programme from which they drop out, that is, on whether they dropped out from a vocational track that included extensive workplace-based training or from a school-based vocational track. The chapter tests hypotheses derived from theories on signalling effects of education and labour market rigidity. In Norway and Sweden, female vocational school dropouts fare worse than their male peers. The data demonstrate no firm evidence that the signalling effect of education can explain much of the between-country variations in opportunities in the labour market, and it is not possible to draw conclusions about the effect of labour market rigidity in the Nordic countries.