Abstract:

We usually associate early school leaving with the present failure of youth to improve their education, as well as with future disadvantages in relation to access to training and education, employment opportunities, employment quality, lower social benefits, etc. But early school leaving could be “a choice” of individuals for better prospects on the labour market or for not significantly higher returns of education for a higher number of schooling years. The rates of early school leavers in countries from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) vary a lot from 2.8% in Croatia to 19.1% in Romania in 2015. On the other hand CEE countries are characterized by lower wages and this is in fact a competitive advantage, their economic development being built on it. Considering these, we aim to analyze the profile and the situation of early school leavers on the labor market in the countries of Eastern and Central Europe. We use for our analyses both Eurostat data on early school leavers and youth unemployment, as well as the section dedicated to the confidence in future employment opportunities of the Flash Eurobarometer 408 (European Youth).

Keywords:

Early school leavers, labour market, employment prospects.