Comparative Analyses on Advanced Vocational and Professional Training Based on Microcensus Data

In recent years, formal advanced vocational and professional training has won substantial importance. The reasons for this trend are continual technical and organizational change in the labor market. This means that an initial professional or vocational training course for the labor force is increasingly less suitable to keep pace with requirements of new production processes. Due to demographic changes, in particular, the predicted lack of young, qualified skilled labor, in future, advanced training of older members in the labor force will play a more significant role.

The project, which is supported in the context of expertise for the German Council for Social and Economic Data, studies advanced professional and vocational training using microcensus data.

In this instance, one focus is the determinant of advanced training participation. The influence of various socio-economic factors is under scrutiny (e.g. age, general educational level, occupational position, position with the company or organization) as they affect advanced training activity. Additional, occupational and workplace conditions have a role to play, so that advanced training behavior is to substantially depend on the sector of the company in question, as much as on the individual occupation under analysis. Furthermore, in these sectors, changes in the time series are also described.

The impact of advanced vocational and professional training on income, labor duration and occupational position are also to be studied to the extent that this is feasible in the context of cross-sectional analyses.

Alongside these essentially content-based questions, the project additionally considers the possibilities and limitations of the use of microcensus for advanced training analyses, in particular, taking into account modifications in the question formulation and the changed time reference.