Abstract

In Germany, students with special needs are traditionally taught in special needs schools. Even though inclusive approaches to schooling have become more popular in recent decades, 57% of students who have special needs still attend a special needs school. The transition into the the labour market is much more difficult for students who have attended a special school than for students from a regular school. Special needs students are less likely to start training and are less likely to be employed or in training in the first five years after leaving school. To date, there has been little research into how poor performance on the labor market is causally influenced by attending a special needs school (instead of attending a regular school) or by intensive career entry support (BerEB). Therefore, this project is intended to use the integrated employment histories (IEB), the data set on benefits for the participation of disabled people in working life (LTA), the career history (WGH) and the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) to examine the causal effect of attending special needs school and the BerEB on the transition into employment. For the analysis of special needs school attendance, the strong temporal and spatial variation in special school offers can be used as a tool for individual special needs school attendance. For the analysis of the BerEb, the regional variation in its introduction is exploited using a difference-in-difference approach.