In today's rapidly evolving context, all countries are facing a variety of challenges, which are interconnected and put stability and competitiveness at risk. These challenges primarily concern technological innovation, but also decarbonization and the transition to a circular economy. Alongside these challenges, Italy must deal with a rapid demographic change: as of January 1, 2023, in Italy there were just over 10.3 million young people aged 18-34, with a sharply decreasing incidence on the overall population compared to 2002 (-22.9 percent); it is the lowest incidence among the EU27 MS, which score an average of 19.3 percent (Istat, Annual Report 2024).

The multiple transitions challenging the country's growth in the coming years are already affecting the labor market and cast a long shadow on policies, calling for the need to recalibrate objectives and resources. In this evolving context, transformations have an asymmetric impact in a country like Italy, which shows large territorial gaps; therefore, policies must be rethought to foster a sustainable, fair and inclusive growth and promote good employment and decent work conditions.

In this perspective, the statistical sample survey on "Young people's paths between school, training and work" - which will be launched in spring 2025 and concluded in the first months of 2026 - aims to make available a richer and more adequate set of data to understand the evolution of young adults' paths in the school to work transition, in order to figure out how much the ongoing transformations are affecting the consolidated paradigms for the new generations and provide an updated and broad set of information to policy-makers.

The implementation of this survey constitutes a methodological challenge as well, as it requires updating theoretical paradigms and analysis tools. Indeed, the vast empirical literature on school-to-work transition has often focused on changes in labor market status, considered as isolated events; in the current context, individuals may face several interconnected transitions - work, family, training, etc. – which draw complex and individualized trajectories. In this sense, the transitional markets approach by G. Schmid (2009 and 2017) underlines the relevance of transitions throughout life and argues that the effectiveness of labor markets should also be measured on the basis of the capabilities provided by institutions (market and non-market) in guaranteeing freely chosen career prospects. Amartya Sen's capabilities approach moves along a convergent direction, underlining that human freedoms should be considered both the main objective, and the primary route to development; therefore, the freedom to choose and tackle labor market transitions is an objective in itself, as well as being the main measure to achieve full and good employment (Sen, 1999).

Both paradigms are integrated into the life-course approach (Elder, 1994), which in recent decades has become central in social sciences. It focuses on the impact of age, relationships, transitions and life events, social change and other choices on people's lives during the life cycle (Hutchinson, 2017). This perspective takes the life cycle - or large phases of it - as a unit of study, in a holistic vision that examines transitions within longer trajectories, to understand medium- and long-term consequences.

Given the theoretical paradigms identified for the study, a challenge is related to the choice of suitable research techniques to understand the complexity of life paths, to delve into the determinants of different trajectories, to identify possible convergences between population groups and design future policies.

The study contemplates a statistical sample survey. On a resident population of 18-34 years of age equal to 10,345,102 individuals in Italy (Istat, 2024), the sample size is 16,200 units, in order to allow for in-depth analysis of specific population subgroups. The sample design involves a two-stage stratified sampling, with random extraction: the first-stage units are represented by Italian municipalities, while the second-stage units are young people aged 18-34. The data collection is carried out through a structured questionnaire delivered through face-to-face interviews (Computer Assisted Personal Interview technique). Only if the sampled person is not available for an in-person interview, a video interview may be proposed as an alternative. A relevant issue to be addressed in research on school to work transition is related to the measurement of its length (Ryan, 2001). Among the different methodologies by scholars (Quintini et a., 2007; Pastore et al, 2021a), we have identified as the most appropriate that used by the ILO (ILO, 2009). In this case, the transition length is measured until the entry into a regular employment, defined in objective terms with reference to a contractual term, and a satisfactory one, which is a subjective element, based on a self-assessment. In line with the ILO approach, the survey aims to explore the various experiences that young people go through before landing a job that they can consider long-lasting and satisfying. Therefore, we need necessary to reconstruct the individuals’ careers, assuming a longitudinal and dynamic perspective, suitable for analyzing paths as serial sequences of events. This type of analysis requires the use of specific techniques, different from the "classic" ones used to analyze longitudinal data focusing on single events. In our study, event history data will be collected retrospectively, starting from the end of school path. Therefore, in the survey we need to adopt methods to reduce the recall bias, that is the error potentially linked to memory. Among the techniques used for this purpose, we have chosen to follow the retrospective survey SHARE (Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement). The logic of this approach is to use graphical supports such as “timelines”, along which the respondent can record important events in his or her life and then place other events around them (see Freedman et al., 1988; Belli, 1998).

Currently, in Italy there are only a few surveys gathering data related to the school-to-work transitions. Mainly, they take a picture of the situation as crystallized in a given historical moment or - at most - measure flows between two states: from non-work to work. Our ambition is to describe in a more analytical way the complex of experiences characterizing entry into work, examining the multiple transitions that individuals experience among different jobs and statuses before landing a permanent and satisfactory occupation. Within the study, a relevant issue concerns the role that vocational education and training plays in individuals’ transition paths. So, we will explore choices, expectations and outcomes in accessing learning opportunities considering both the longer and more structured paths of initial VET and the much shorter training courses which can be carried out on and off the job. The survey represents a chance to verify whether and to what extent the image of VET has changed among young people, to analyze if and to what extent they consider vocational training as a valid means to integrate the knowledge and competencies acquired at school and fill the gap with respect to companies’ needs. Another relevant issue concerns the analysis of the "returns" of VET, or the evaluation of how much vocational training guarantees better opportunities for job placement and performance at work. Although this is a widely debated issue in the economic literature, which generally focuses on returns of school degrees and diplomas, a solid and recurrent empirical reference is lacking with regard to the Italian case. Our ambition is to set up a survey collecting all the data needed to calculate the return on investment in initial VET.

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