Schooling and professional trajectories of young people : a view from the European Periphery

In this article we discuss the role of school diplomas in the transition of young people to adulthood. To analyze this role we pay special attention to the professional trajectories of young people in contemporary societies. The empirical analysis was carried out in a Portuguese region particularly suited to this analysis thanks to the great dichotomy between young people with excellent education levels and youngsters that feature low education levels and are early school leavers. The findings demonstrate the existence of four profiles that reflect the diversity of professional paths of young people, different kinds of dominant schooling pathways in each one, the mainstreaming of job insecurity in all profiles, and finally the emergence of new forms of transition between unemployment and employment.