How Social Class and Education Affect Youth Transition in Japan? : Youth Cohort Study of Japan

The purpose of this report is to clarify how social class and education influence youth transition in Japan from Youth Cohort Study of Japan (YCSJ). In the late 90’s, the life course after secondary school graduation have significantly changed. The close connection between upper secondary schools and employers to smoothly transit the graduates into work in Japan had been once highly praised, but the system became less functional due to several factors (Mary C.Brinton, 2011, Lost in Transition). Many young people cannot get permanent and secure jobs, so some of them become ‘Freeters’ who only get temporal and insecure jobs to make a living. Many empirical studies have taken place to find who are the most disadvantaged among Japanese youth, trying to find what causes the dysfunctional transition between school and labor market in the 2000’s. However, most of these studies focused on the youth transition during only a certain period of time, and they are not sufficient to clarify the complexity of youth transition. YCSJ has conducted a panel survey of a group of youth for five years from their age of 20, so that YCSJ is able to capture the dynamic young people’s transition in consideration of various factors. Above all, we aim at unraveling how youth transition differentiated with social class and educational opportunities.