Education and the Labour Market

The research activities focus, on the one hand, on vocational orientation, vocational and educational aspirations, and post-school educational decisions that are relevant for the transition from school to vocational training, academic studies, or the labour market. Both transitions from training programmes and transitions from the regular education system are considered.

On the other hand, the IAB analyses the framework conditions and effects of continuing education and training. This includes not only the retrospective acquisition of formal education and vocational qualifications but also non-formal and informal continuing education and training. The importance of continuing vocational training in the context of technological change at the company- and individual level will also be examined.

The effects of institutional changes or of measures taken by the Federal Employment Agency play an important role. These include, for example, measures to provide vocational guidance to pupils or the promotion of continuing vocational training.

The Research has unique datasets at its disposal: in addition to administrative data, survey data such as the National Education Panel (Nationales Bildungspanel), the IAB Establishment Panel (IAB-Betriebspanel) or specially collected data such as that of the study on the vocational orientation of pupils form the basis for analysis.