This presentation from the OECD Disrupted Futures 2023: International lessons on how schools can best equip students for their working lives conference looks at How career guidance can best respond to social inequalities: new OECD analysis and guidance. Presented by Shinyoung Jeon and Anthony Mann. Discover the videos and other sessions from the OECD Disrupted Futures 2023 conference at https://www.oecd.org/education/career-readiness/conferences-webinars/disrupted-futures-2023.htm Find out more about our work on Career Readiness https://www.oecd.org/education/career-readiness/

1. Disrupted Futures 2023
How career guidance can best
respond to social inequalities:
new OECD analysis and guidance
31 May 2023
Day 1, International Online Conference
Shinyoung Jeon (Policy Analyst at the OECD Career Readiness Team)

2. • In this presentation, we will look at:
• Inequalities in education-to-work transition
• Results from data analysis across OECD countries, including Career
Readiness Indicators
• Implication for career guidance

3. • How do inequalities influence the transitions of young
people as they transition from school to work?
• How the early labour market experiences are shaped by
inequalities linked to young adults’ socio-economic status
(also gender and migrant background)
• How socio-economic inequality can be seen to shape student
career thinking and engagement in career development activities.

4. • OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
• Allows comparison between students (aged 15-16) with different backgrounds while
other factors being equal such as academic performance.
• OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies
(PIAAC)
• Allows comparison between young adults (aged 15-34) with different backgrounds
while other factors being equal such as skill and education levels.
• OECD Career Readiness Indicators
• Key indicators of teenage career readiness.
• So far 14 indicators in the areas of career exploration, experiencing and thinking
• 11 indicators confirmed + 3 partially confirmed through analysis of longitudinal
datasets in multiple countries.

5. • A student’s socio-economic status is estimated by the PISA index
of economic, social and cultural status (ESCS).
• Low SES: Bottom quartile of the index
• High SES: Top quartile of the index
• For PIAAC, the level of educational attainment attained by the
parents of the participants in the Survey was used as proxy to
indicate young adults’ SES
• Low SES: Those whose parents who have not attained upper secondary
education, versus
• High SES: Those whose at least one parent who has attained tertiary
education

6. Inequalities in the early
career experience of
young adults,
using OECD PIAAC

7. 15 percentage points higher among low SES
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Low SES High SES
1. Labour market engagement - NEET
Percentage (%) of young adults in NEET, by SES

8. 1. Labour market engagement - NEET
Low SES are 3.5 times more likely to be NEET than high SES
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
15
Relative likelihood (odds ratio) of young adults with low SES being NEET in reference to those with high SES
Note: Odds ratios take into account the effect of level of education, literacy score, gender and place of birth.

9. 2. Labour market segmentation - sector
6 percentage point
higher among low SES
6 pp 6 pp
-6 pp
-10 pp
-20
-10
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Agriculture, forestry
and fishing
Manufacturing Construction Market Services Non-market services
Low SES High SES Gap (percentage point)
Share (%) of young adults by employment sector and by SES, OECD average

10. 2. Labour market segmentation - occupation
15% 28%
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Legislators, senior officials and managers
Professionals
Technicians and associate professionals
Clerks
Service workers and shop and market sales workers
Skilled agricultural and fishery workers
Craft and related trades workers
Plant and machine operators and assemblers
Elementary occupations
Higher SES Lower SES
Share (%) of young adults by occupation and by SES background, OECD average

11. 3. Job quality - wage
11.5%
15.5%
High SES are 1.8 times more likely to
earn high wages than low SES
0.6
0
1
2
3
4
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Hungary United States
2012/2014
Turkey Korea OECD average Canada
Low High Odds Ratio (right axis)
Percentage of young adults (16-34) with wage at top quartile, by parent education
Note: Only countries with statistically significant results are presented.

12. • SES can be seen to shape young adults’ labour market
outcomes, even after taking account of skill/educational
levels.
• On average, disadvantaged young people are much more likely to
be NEET than their advantaged peers.
• In work, patterns of concentration are apparent linked to SES.
• Parental advantage strongly influences the progression of their
children, notably into higher paying and higher status
employment.
• Young adults from more disadvantaged backgrounds often
face additional barriers in converting the human capital into
successful employment.

13. Inequalities in teenage
career readiness, using
OECD PISA and Career
Readiness Indicators

14. • Exploring potential futures in work: career conversations with
teachers, family members and friends; engaging with people in work
through career talks or job fairs; workplace visits or job shadowing;
application and interview skills development activities; occupation-
focused short programmes.
• Experiencing potential futures in work: activities involving first-hand
experiences of workplaces such as part-time work, internships, and
volunteering.
• Thinking about potential future careers:
• Career uncertainty: inability as a teenager to name an expected adult
occupation.
• Career ambition: expectation of working in a job classified as high-skilled jobs.
• Career misalignment: aligning educational plans with occupational ambitions.

15. 4. Teenage career exploration
1.7
1.6
1.5 1.5
1.4 1.4 1.4
1.2
1.2
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
Job
fair
Spoke
to
a
career
advisor
outside
of
my
school
Job
shadowing
Internship
College
or
univeristy
tour
Questionnaire
Internet
research
for
college/university
programmes
Internet
research
for
careers
information
Spoke
to
a
career
advisor
at
my
school
Odds ratio
Relative likelihood of students with high SES in reference to low SES,
OECD average

16. 5. Teenage career experiencing
1.5
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
Odds ratio
Relative likelihood of students with high SES (top quartile) doing an
internship in reference to low SES (bottom quartile), by country

17. 6. Teenage career thinking - uncertainty
Relative likelihood of disadvantaged students to be uncertain about their careers at age 30
in reference to advantaged ones
1.1
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6
Odds ratio
2.5

18. 6. Teenage career thinking - ambition
2.7
0
1
2
3
4
5
Odds ratio
Relative likelihood of advantaged students to expect to work
in high-skilled occupations

19. 6. Teenage career thinking - ambition
5
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Odds ratio
Relative likelihood of advantaged students to expect
to complete tertiary education

20. 6. Teenage career thinking - misalignment
4.6
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Odds ratio
Relative likelihood of disadvantaged students to be misaligned in their career
expectation in reference to advantaged ones

21. • Socio-economically disadvantaged students are commonly:
• participating less in career development activities
• less certain about their future careers
• less ambitious about their future careers
• demonstrating poorer understanding of the labour market and its
relation to education.
• The role of career guidance comes in:
• The country difference shows that the effects of inequality are not
inevitable.
• It is also important to highlight the results of Career Readiness
Indicators based on longitudinal studies, showing that positive teenage
career thinking leads to better adult employment outcomes.

22. For more details:
OECD Career Readiness Website:
https://www.oecd.org/education/career-readiness/
OECD (2021), "Indicators of teenage career readiness: Guidance for policy makers", OECD Education Policy Perspectives, No. 43, OECD Publishing, Paris,
https://doi.org/10.1787/6a80e0cc-en.
OECD (2021), "Career Readiness in the Pandemic: Insights from new international research for secondary schools", OECD Education Policy Perspectives, No. 44,
OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/8b1215dc-en.
OECD (2021), "Career readiness in the pandemic: A summary of project findings", OECD Education Policy Perspectives, No. 46, OECD Publishing, Paris,
https://doi.org/10.1787/e9544a77-en.