The Youth Experience Gap, 1st ed. 2015. Corr. 3rd printing 2014 Explaining National Differences in the School-to-Work Transition SpringerBriefs in Economics Series

?The education to work transition of young people is key to a successful work-life and to fight youth unemployment. The book provides an impressive outline of the facts and convincing insights of the potential causes. This offers a large and broader audience help to adjust properly to achieve a better life.?
Klaus F. Zimmermann, IZA, Bonn, Germany

This work points to the youth experience gap as a key concept to explain the meager employment opportunities and earnings many young people face.The transition from education to work remains a long dark tunnel around the world. However, this book shows that there are striking differences between countries: in Germany, the young people of today are no worse off than their adult counterparts, while in Southern European and Eastern European countries they fare 3 through 4 times worse.

The current economic and financial crisis has further exacerbated the situation for young people in many advanced economies. Observers are divided as to the optimal design of youth employment policy. Liberalists believe that the market itself should address youth disadvantages. More flexible labor markets should also guarantee greater labor turnover, including temporary work, so as to allow young people to move from one job to the next until they accumulate the work experience they need to become more employable and find the right career. In contrast, other economists oppose approaches focusing on entry flexibility and temporary work, claiming that the former type helps only the most skilled and motivated target groups, while the latter only allows young people to gather generic, not job-specific work experience.                         

Francesco Pastore [Ph.D. (Sussex); Dottorato ("Federico II"); M.Sc. (Coripe-Piemonte); Laurea ("Federico II")] qualified as full professor of Economic Policy and as Associate Professor of Economics and Economic Statistics in 2013. Currently, he is Associate Professor of Economics at Seconda Università di Napoli, research fellow of the IZA of Bonn, Secretary of the Italian Association of Labor Economists, and member of the executive board of the Italian Association of Comparative Economic Studies.

He has acted as a consultant for, among others, the EU Commission, ILO, UNDP and World Bank.

In addition to this monograph, he has published two edited books for Springer and three special issues of the International Journal of Manpower and a number of scientific articles in such journals as, among others: Journal of Economic Surveys, Stata Journal, Economics of Education Review, European Journal of Development Research, Economics of Transition, Comparative Economic Studies.

See  interview with the author: http://www.europeandme.eu/27legs/1592-economics-of-education-in-europe       &nbs

Provides a new interpretative framework to understand the youth disadvantage on the labor market

Discusses advantages and shortcomings of youth employment policy in many EU and non-EU advanced economies

Includes tips for practitioners and policy makers on how to better define employment policy and better organize public and private employment services

Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras