School-to-work transition is no longer considered to take place at one point but it is seen as a sequential process with multiple stages that extend over a relatively long period in which individuals gradually settle down into the labour market. This article constructs and examines the labour pathways followed by Spanish young people who have completed vocational lower secondary education. To do so, we use the Survey on Educational-Training Transition and Labour Integration, a retrospective longitudinal dataset that contains monthly calendar information about the labour states in the 4 years after completing vocational education. A wide range of states is covered: part-time employment, full-time employment, unemployment and several situations of inactivity. To examine young labour pathways we use sequence analysis, an exploratory technique which allows us to obtain a measure of dissimilarity between sequences. Later, a cluster analysis is applied that allow us to identify seven patterns of transition into the labour market. Nevertheless, most trajectories may be classified as linear, with a successful integration into the labour market. A multinomial logit model confirms that demographic and educational variables are relevant to explain the pathways followed by young people. © 2012 Taylor & Francis.
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