Taking time off between high school and postsecondary education: Determinants and early labour market outcomes

This article uses the first three cycles of the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS) to ask the question: are there any differences in early labour market outcomes following postsecondary graduation for young adults who took a break of more than four months between finishing high school and starting postsecondary studies compared to those who went straight on to postsecondary education? Results suggest that taking time off between high school graduation and postsecondary studies affects university and college educated young adults differently. Moreover, what matters most is not whether youth had delayed starting a postsecondary program following high school graduation, but rather whether they went to a postsecondary program and saw it through to completion. Meanwhile, pertinent background factors include grade-point average, parental education and sex.