Relatively little is known about the factors that impact pathways into employment for care leavers. Existing knowledge tends to come from small-scale qualitative studies and those focused on education outcomes. These have suggested that care leavers often face precarious employment conditions in marginal or insecure jobs, magnifying the realities of the prevailing youth labour market. Many of them can find themselves under considerable pressure to take work with limited prospects to meet essential costs in the absence of family safety nets. The purpose of our study was therefore to explore risk and protective factors for care leavers as they enter early adulthood and begin their employment journeys. Studies of young people suggest that deprivation, low qualifications and disability are strongly associated with being NEET, alongside parenthood, offending and mental health issues. Care leavers have a greater likelihood of appearing in all these groups, partly explaining their high propensity to be NEET. However, specific factors associated with care may also be salient, including type and stability of placements and the forms of support offered by the state. The aim of our study was therefore to provide novel evidence, founded on large scale national datasets and qualitative exploration, to enable policymakers, practitioners and the research community to better understand transitions into early adulthood for care leavers.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)