Concept & Design

Medium-term panel study: To address insufficiencies of previous datasets, JTEPS builds a quantitative panel survey on the educational and professional life courses of two groups of Japanese individuals: academic (university students) and non-academic youth in Japan. In addition to prospective data on education, transition, and employment over a period of three years, retrospective information will be collected to map past educational biographies and life histories. This approach provides valuable systematic data on the life courses of individuals with different origin (gender, SES) and educational biographies, living in different contexts (indicating significant differences in SA opportunities) and expectable differences in future trajectories in Japan. Distinguishing between both groups of adolescents provides highly policy relevant knowledge on integration processes of highly vs moderately skilled workers.

Mixed method sampling design: Another core feature of the JTEPS combines a multi-level approach (MLA) to acknowledge the clustering of individuals in different social institutions/contexts with a mixed methods triangulation approach to enrich the standardized quantitative data with in-depth qualitative information (JTEPS_QUAN → JTEPS_qual; i.e., complex quantitatively driven sequential design). Consequently, the collection of quantitative individual data (complemented by administrative institutional data, JTEPS_QUAN) is followed by a selection of individual cases from within the quantitative sample for further in-depth inquiry to situate the quantitative findings and gather additional insights on individuals’ life courses (JTEPS_qual).

"Education and career" domain study: The JTEPS covers all core educational, transitional, and training processes in early adulthood. We focus on three thematic subdomains: education, transition, and work&life.

Design of the JTEPS survey (including sample sizes)