The transition from higher education to employment in Europe: the analysis of the time to obtain the first job

This paper investigates the determinants of the transition from higher education to work across Europe using various specifications of duration models and a one-time multi-country survey of university graduates from nine European countries. Results point to differences between the North and South of Europe in the difficulty of getting a first job. They confirm that individual characteristics such as the field/level of studies or the socioeconomic background, and individual job search bear a significant relationship to the probability of finding a job. Evidence of unobserved heterogeneity is also found.