ABSTRACT
During the post-war consolidation and expansion of the Welfare State, young people’s access to, and opportunities within, the education system and the labour market changed dramatically in the UK. The majority of young people left school in their mid-teens and went straight into full-time employment in the 1950s and 1960s when the minimum school leaving age between 1948 and 1972 was fifteen years. In 1960 only one in six of 16-year-olds and one in twelve of 17-year-olds were still in maintained schools. Six out of seven school leavers took full-time jobs and few experienced unemployment. In July 1961 only 10,000 of the 330,000 unemployed were under 19 years of age. A small but growing minority (11 per cent), continued into further or higher education. Now the picture is very different. In 1990 over a third of 16-to 18-year-olds were in full-time education, one in six were on a government training scheme and under half had full-time jobs. Over 10 per cent of the nearly three million officially unemployed in 1993 were teenagers. ‘Unemployment in the UK is highest among the young. In spring 1993 more than one in five economically active males and one in six economically active females aged nineteen and under were unemployed’ (Central Statistical Office, 1994, p. 55).
