The role of early adolescent experiences in explaining differences in school-to-work trajectories between siblings
Young people’s education and employment careers at age 16-21 (school-to-work trajectories1 ) are a crucial determinant of social inequalities throughout the life course. There is considerable evidence these trajectories are influenced by family background (e.g., social class and ethnicity). However, we have little understanding of how similar or different these trajectories are between siblings2 and which early life sibling-specific adverse events affect individual trajectories, after accounting for parental background. Strengthening knowledge in this field is crucial for designing policies to support young people to manage the impacts of adverse early adolescent experiences, such as parental separation or poor mental health. By linking the Youth Panel and the UKHLS adult main dataset, this project will explore which factors influence differences in trajectories between siblings from the same family background. Using a longitudinal life course perspective, it will a) map sibling trajectories into education and employment between ages 16 and 21; b) examine the contribution of compositional factors (age difference and gender composition of siblings) and household/parental characteristics (i.e., social class, ethnicity, marital status) to differences in trajectories and c) explore the extent to which different trajectories can be explained by sibling-specific early adolescent experiences at age 10-15 (i.e., early adolescent mental ill health, educational aspirations, parental separation or job loss).
Outputs
Understanding Society Working Paper: Sibling similarity in education and employment trajectories in the UK: same, but different?
