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GENERATION “GETTING NOWHERE”: The transitions of unemployed youth in transitional Macedonia

A study by Korunovska Srbijanko Jana, Korunovska Avramovska Neda & Maleska Tanja.

ABSTRACT
The current study’s aims are twofold: first, we investigate the relationship between the level of
education and employment status among Macedonian youth when controlling for age, gender,
ethnicity, social status, social network, place of residence, education attained by respondent’s
parents and number of children. In this way we are attempting to establish the predictors of youth
employment. Specifically, we hypothesize that there is a positive relationship between the level
of attained education and employment status when controlling for age, gender, ethnicity, social
status, social network, place of residence, education attained by respondent’s parents and number
of children; and that each control variable is related to employment status. Second, we compare
the results of the youth sample with an older sample (above 29 years) and investigate whether
there is a change in pattern i.e. whether the predictors explain the same amount of variance in the
employment status as in the youth sample.
Results based on a representative sample of 528 young Macedonians (younger than 29 years) and
667 older Macedonians support our hypothesis for the older sample, but not for the youth sample,
even when we control for educational status i.e. whether the respondents are currently in the
educational process or not.
We conclude that the small but significant, unique positive relationship between the level of
attained education and the chances for employment found for the total sample and the older
samples disappears when only the youth sample is considered.
Out of the control variables, only the place of residence and the ethnicity of the respondent do
not predict employment in the older sample, whereas for the youth, gender and number of
children of the respondents also lose their predictive power. Theoretical and practical
implications of the study are discussed.

 

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