ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the continued prominence of the new measures up to 1988 was due mainly to economic revival and the new demographic trend making little impact on young people's prospects in many parts of the country. It demonstrates that some of the post-summer returns by our respondents were due to the individuals' inability to obtain suitable employment. The chapter also demonstrates how the apparent scale of unemployment can be varied considerably according to how the rate is calculated. The core research in the 16–19 Initiative comprises longitudinal studies of representative samples of young people from four parts of Britain — Kirkcaldy, Liverpool, Sheffield and Swindon. The initiative was designed with the declared aim of identifying young people's main 'trajectories' from education into the labour market. Moreover, the quality of the jobs held at age 18–19 by the young adults who made successful traditional transitions at age 16 compared favourably with the occupational attainments of all the other groups.
