Research question/goal:

In order to improve the availability of data on transitions between education and the labour market in Europe, Eurostat has introduced a topical module on transitions from education to work into the Labour Force Survey 2000 in 14 EU member states. This effort was additionally joined by six Eastern European candidate countries. Based on an international expert network, the project is conceived as an evaluation study of this new European database. It first includes a methodological evaluation part, assessing the degree of comparability achieved in the concrete implementation of the module, as well as assessing the resulting data quality. Added to this, the project evaluates the particular value of the ad hoc module for substantive analyses of core issues in transition processes from school to work, including (1) The role of social origin on educational attainment and work transition outcomes, (2) Field of education and gender differences in the labour market, (3) Incidence and consequences of job mismatches, (4) Job search and mobility behaviour in the early career stages, and (5) Ethnic inequalities in transition processes.