Code/Syntax: Career Compromises and Dropping Out of Vocational Education and Training in Germany

These are replication files for the paper 'Beckmann, J., Wicht, A., & Siembab, M. (2023). Career Compromises and Dropout from Vocational Education and Training in Germany, Social Forces, 2023, soad063, https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soad063' The package contains all Stata do-Files to replicate all the analysis of the study.

The study investigates the relevance of career compromises (i.e., the discrepancy between the expected and the actually attained training position) to the decision to drop out of vocational education and training (VET), focusing on compromises in terms of social status and gender type. We pay particular attention to upward and downward compromises. Using longitudinal data on 7,205 apprentices from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS, Starting Cohort 4), the results of discrete event history models show that both dimensions of compromise are crucial to the decision to drop out of a first VET position. In particular, downward gender-type discrepancies increase the probability that female apprentices will drop out. These findings draw attention to the role of pre-entry VET policies, such as career counseling, in minimizing the incidence of career compromises.