Abstract
The Brussels Capital Region knows consistently high youth unemployment already since the 2008 Great Recession. In that context, the aim of this paper is to investigate if the mental health status of young urban labor market entrants affects their school-to-work-transition in the subsequent 20 months. The study is based on a primary data collection among Brussels’ youth in the transition from education to employment (2015; 18- to 29-year-olds; N = 540) combined with administrative follow-up data of 20 months between 2015 and 2017 (N = 540). Labor market trajectories during the follow-up period consisted of combinations of the following states: ‘unemployed’, ‘employed’, and ‘participating in active labor market policies’ (i.e. coaching, training and internship). Based on the combinations of these states, our results revealed 6 different school-to-work-trajectories: ‘unemployed’; ‘stable employment’; ‘delayed employment’; ‘unemployed with guidance’; ‘set back to unemployment’ and ‘drop-out’. A multivariable multinomial logistic regression showed that men in ‘delayed employment’ had significantly poorer mental health than those in ‘stable employment’. In conclusion, our results showed that there is an association between mental health when entering the labor market and the type of school-to-work-transition.
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Abbreviations
- BCR:
-
Brussels Capital Region
- ALMP:
-
Active Labor Market Policy
- GHQ:
-
General Health Questionnaire
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Tuba Bircan for sharing her statistical knowledge. We would also like to thank Jenna Gailly; Henk Termote; Joachim Hoeree; Sandy Van Rechem and Laora Mastari for their contributions in collecting the data.
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The research for this article was supported by the Public Employment Service, Actiris and the Brussels-Capital Health and Social Observatory provide respectively non-financial practical support and scientific advice. Financial support was granted by Innoviris (PRFB 2014–14) and the Flemish Community Commission (AD2/ WGG/GZ/DF/14–256).
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KH is the corresponding author of the manuscript and was involved in the acquisition of the 2015 data under supervision of CV. KH performed the statistical analysis and drafted the manuscript, which was read and revised by CV and MW. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Ethical approval for the BCR-study was received from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel Medical ethics board (2015/229; B.U.N. 143201525066). Participants were fully informed about the study by a researcher and the informed consent form they signed prior to their participation.
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Huegaerts, K., Wagener, M. & Vanroelen, C. Is Mental Health a Predictor for a Smooth School-to-Work-Transition? A 20-Month Follow-Up Study of Brussels Youth. Applied Research Quality Life 15, 1549–1567 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-019-09749-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-019-09749-6