The Youth Labour Market in Britain
The Role of Intervention

An assessment of government policies of intervention in the youth labour market in Britain.

B. M. Deakin (Author)

9780521553285, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 February 1996

240 pages, 61 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.49 kg

This book assesses the role of government training and employment policies in the youth labour market in Britain. Based on extensive field research, it presents a comprehensive survey of this important and developing branch of labour economics. The author looks at the subject both historically and analytically, using an examination of human capital theory and the economic theory of training to provide a context for his research. Demographic, educational, economic and technological developments over time have greatly influenced the youth labour market, and Mr Deakin relates these changes to the effects of successive government training and employment schemes (such as YOP, TVEI and YTS/YT) on young people, employers and the national economy. He then compares these effects with the alternative no-policy position, and through this comparison detects an erratic policy-learning process which has important implications for future policy.

Preface and acknowledgements
1. Introduction
2. Demographic structure, capacity and economic activity
3. Supply to the youth labour market
4. Vocational and educational training in historical perspective
5. Direct government intervention: early schemes
6. The development of the modern system of youth training
7. The first stage in the vocational education and training sequence
8. Methodology of assessment
9. An assessment of the economic effects of the Youth Training Scheme upon employment and employers
10. Some macroeconomic effects of YTS
11. The skill attainments of YTS trainees in relation to the demand for skilled labour
12. The devolution of intervention and the movement towards quasi-markets
13. Some critics of the government's youth training intervention
14. Collaboration and opposition from trade unions
15. Results and conclusions
Appendix. Resource endowment
Notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Labour economics [KCF]