Work and School Pathways Into the Transition to Adulthood: Adolescent Family, Individual, and Industry Precursors.

Many young adults in countries with advanced economies make linear career transitions from school to work. However, there is a great variability in youth's postsecondary education and early work experiences and more work is needed to identify the career trajectories of modern youth. Using longitudinal data on 1747 young adults from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1997, the current study identifies work and school pathways commonly seen in the transition to adulthood and investigates multiple levels of adolescent precursors. Using latent class analysis, we identified four work and school pathways centered on educational attainment. Whereas parental education and future educational expectations in adolescence significantly shaped the career pathways, local labor market conditions played a limited role in predicting these pathways.