The Research Department “Education, Training, and Employment Over the Life Course" examines the relationship between educational processes and labour market opportunities for various fields of education, such as vocational and university education, further training, certified and non-certified skills and qualifications. Our research activities relate to both the labour market entry and labour market careers.

We organize our research into four core areas. First, within the research area “Transitions from school to work”, we ask which factors shape smooth transitions from school to vocational education and ultimately to employment. Second, the area “Higher education” analyses, for example, determinants of university enrolment, academic success, and labour market perspectives of graduates. The third area “Migration and education” considers the integration of migrants into education and training, and the labour market performance of individuals with a migration background. The fourth area “Further training and lifelong learning” analyses, for instance, the importance of further training in dynamic labour markets. Within each subject area, we carry out in-depth investigation into the investments in and the returns to education, and pay particular attention to the role of gender and the social background in the relationship between education and employment.

Our empirical research is based on administrative data from the Federal Employment Agency, and particularly on the survey data, which we largely draw from own quantitative and qualitative surveys. For example, we coordinate the adult stage of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) in cooperation with the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi). The NEPS is a large-scale, representative panel study with annual surveys on life and employment trajectories, educational processes of adults, and lifelong learning.