Institute of Education London

Centre for the Analysis of Youth Transitions (CAYT)

The circumstances of young people in the UK are changing rapidly, in terms of how they spend their time and the choices they make:

• The period that young people spend in the transition years between childhood and adulthood has grown;
• Youth engagement in a range of risky behaviours has increased;
• The education and labour market options faced by young people have changed dramatically.

The experiences of young people have also become more polarised. Some youths follow the traditional fast route of leaving school at the compulsory school leaving age to start employment, or becoming unemployed, whilst others participate in further and higher education and make the step into the labour market and family formation at a later age, often not until their early 30s. These routes taken by young people tend to follow a pattern which is closely linked to their socio-economic status and gender.

CAYT has been set up to,

• provide robust evidence on these transitions made by young people;
• help inform key government policies such as the raising of the education and training participation age to age 18.

CAYT will seek to improve our understanding of the bridging period between childhood and adulthood and how it is changing over time, with a particular focus on what this can tell us about the likely effectiveness of a range of policy interventions.