The Influence of Social Contacts on the Vocational Training Success and Entry into the First Job

• Applicant: Dr. Tobias Roth
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 447764847

Previous research has stressed the importance of social contacts in job search, job stability, and professional success. At the same time, however, only few empirical studies in Germany and in the international context take a closer look at the influence of social relations during the transition from school to the labour market. In Germany, vocational education is central to a successful labour market career. Each year, around 700,000 people start vocational training. However, around one quarter of all training contracts are terminated prematurely, and many graduates have trouble finding a first job that is pertinent to their qualification. While first multivariate results concerning the influence of social contacts on the entry into vocational training are available, little is known about their influence on training success and the subsequent job search. At the same time, there are theoretical reasons and empirical evidence that social contacts play an important role here, for instance owing to their potential to generate conflicts but also to provide support and information during training and job search. The proposed project therefore aims to close this gap, using social capital approaches as the theoretical basis. It is argued that certain social contacts and their characteristics are to different degrees helpful to overcome the various hurdles. In addition to the type of relationship with the contacts, also their social position, gender, and ethnicity are considered. Furthermore, it is assumed that ethnic and gender inequalities in vocational training and job search success are partly due to differences between groups in terms of network composition and network mobilisation. The hypotheses are tested empirically using the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). Differently than the data in the majority of previous studies, the panel structure of the NEPS-data allows for employing a longitudinal research design, which—together with the exceptionally comprehensive information on social contacts and relevant control variables—is used to draw a differentiated picture and to come closer to identifying causal effects. The closer investigation of a potentially relevant influencing factor on various key phases in the transition to the labour market is not only of scientific interest, but also has a high political and societal relevance due to the importance of vocational training in Germany.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants