THE YOUTH TRAINING SCHEME AND THE SCHOOL-TO-WORK TRANSITION

Data from the Youth Cohort Study of Britain are used to estimate hazar d functions for time to first job by school leavers. Participants in t he Youth Training Scheme (YTS) are compared with non-participants. Whe n time taken to obtain a job is modelled, YTS trainees obtain jobs at a slower rate than non-trainees even when time spent on YTS is exclude d. However, female YTS trainees obtain 'good' jobs at a faster rate th an non-trainees when time spent on YTS is excluded. Our main results a re robust to the inclusion of a selectivity effect, and to the inclusi on of local labour market conditions as a time-dependent covariate.