[Occupational stress and stress management among female and male trainees]. / Berufsbelastung und Stressbewältigung von weiblichen und männlichen Auszubildenden.

BACKGROUND: The transition from school to professional life is a significant event for adolescents and young adults. It is not uncommon for fears or feelings of being overwhelmed to arise during this transitional period. Against this backdrop, the article examines the subjective stress experiences of trainees, with special consideration given to gender and various occupational settings. METHODS: From seven Bavarian vocational schools, 1209 students were surveyed. Stress experiences, coping strategies, psychological and physical complaints, as well as occupational burdens were assessed. Relationships between demographic characteristics, professional settings, and stress experiences were investigated through bivariate and multivariate analyses. RESULTS: Female students report higher levels of stress and are more likely to use emotion-regulating stress coping strategies. Men more frequently attempt to compensate for stress through alcohol and drugs. Differences in stress burden between occupational groups are only evident in bivariate analysis. In multivariate analyses, the gender effect remains highly significant. Negative occupational demands and maladaptive coping strategies significantly promote the experience of stress. DISCUSSION: The results suggest that a significant proportion of respondents perceive the training conditions as burdensome, are exposed to health risks, and respond inadequately to stress. The establishment of additional prevention programs in both the training company and in vocational school would be desirable.

Influence of Person-Vocation Fit on Satisfaction and Persistence in Vocational Training Programs.

Positive effects of person-environment fit on job satisfaction and persistence are well documented. However, little is known about the consequences of person-vocation (P-V) fit for vocational education and training (VET). Using data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), we examine the influence of selected P-V fit indicators (educational match, interest congruence, skill congruence) on training satisfaction and premature contract termination (PCT) for 4,097 trainees in VET. We find that most P-V incongruences do not lead to negative consequences. Training satisfaction is not affected by interest congruence and skill congruence. However, moderate overeducation (intermediately qualified adolescents working in occupations with high shares of low-qualified trainees) enhances training satisfaction. For PCT, there is a general effect of undereducation; undereducation increases the probability of PCT independent of educational qualification for the occupation. PCT is not affected by skill congruence and only for Realistic interests, congruence with the vocational environment reduces PCT probability.

Career Decision, Work Adjustment, and Person-Job Fit of Adolescents: Moderating Effects of Parental Support.

We applied the social cognitive model of work satisfaction to the transition from lower secondary education to work in Switzerland and combined career decision and adjustment to work. The model assumes that self-efficacy affects career decision outcomes and adjustment after transition to work. Self-efficacy interacts with parental support during career decision making. We tested the model using a longitudinal sample of 603 adolescents who filled out questionnaires in seventh grade, ninth grade, and 1 year after starting work. Structural equation models showed that parental support weakens the effect of self-efficacy on anticipated person-job fit and expectations of work conditions (moderation). Expectations of work conditions and a company's support help newcomers to attain a high perceived person-job fit. These findings have several implications on how to support adolescents' school-to-work transition.

Can Locus of Control Compensate for Socioeconomic Adversity in the Transition from School to Work?

Internal locus of control is associated with academic success and indicators of wellbeing in youth. There is however less understanding regarding the role of locus of control in shaping the transition from school to work beyond the more widely studied predictors of socioeconomic background and academic attainment. Guided by a socio-ecological model of agency, the current study examines to which extent internal locus of control, understood as an indicator of individual agency, can compensate for a lack of socioeconomic resources by moderating the association between parental disadvantage and difficulties in the transition from school to work. We draw on data collected from a longitudinal nationally representative cohort of 15,770 English youth (48% female) born in 1989/90, following their lives from age 14 to 20. The results suggest that the influence of agency is limited to situations where socioeconomic risk is not overpowering. While internal locus of control may help to compensate for background disadvantage regarding avoidance of economic inactivity and unemployment to some extent, it does not provide protection against long-term inactivity, i.e. more than 6 months spent not in education, employment or training.

Transições da escola para o trabalho no Brasil: persistência da desigualdade e frustração de expectativas / Transitions from school to work in Brazil: the persistence of inequality and frustrated expectations / Transitions de l'école vers le travail au Brésil: persistance des inégalités et frustration des attentes

This study analyzes the changes in economic structure and labor markets in the last 60 years in Brazil that provided the basis for establishing patterns in the transition from school to work for young men and women born since 1948. Data from population censuses beginning in 1970 and the National Household Sample Surveys (PNADs) beginning in 1976 were used to support the idea that Brazil witnessed a developmentalist pattern in the social trajectories of young people marked by lesser importance of education in shaping their initial life opportunities, constructed in a highly unstable and poorly structured labor market. This pattern can be distinguished from another, which we will call a fordist transition pattern, typical of advanced capitalist countries and characterized by strong family and state control over the general work qualifications processes, in which the school plays a central role and serves as the principal element for social mobility and creation of life opportunities.

Dans ce travail on étudie les changements dans la structure économique et dans les marchés du travail au long de 60 annnées au Brésil: ces changements ont jalonné la construction de modèles de transition de l'école vers le travail pour des jeunes gens des deux sexes nés à partir de 1948. On se sert de données de recensements démographiques depuis 1970 ainsi que des PNADs depuis 1976 pour montrer que, au Brésil, il s'est formé un modèle de développement de la trajectoire sociale des jeunes où l'on remarque le peu d'importance donnée à l'éducation pour leurs premières chances de travail, construites dans un marché hautement instable et peu structuré. Ce modèle peut se distanguer d'un autre, appelé le modèle fordiste de transition, propre aux pays à capitalisme avancé et marqué par un contrôle étroit issu des familles ainsi que de l'État, sur les processus généraux de qualification au travail, dans lesquels l'école a eu une place centrale, en tant que principal élément de mobilité sociale et de production de chances dans la vie.