The evolution of the training-to-work transition for apprentices in France over the last twenty years

Initial vocational training for young people in France is structured around two pathways: the school-based pathway, with training provided in vocational high schools, and the apprenticeship pathway, when young people enter into a dual vocational training contract that requires them to spend alternating periods of time in the workplace and in apprentice training centres. For a long time, the apprenticeship pathway attracted only a minority of young people. Over the last thirty years, however, numerous reforms, including the establishment of apprenticeship schemes in higher education, have led to a doubling of the number of apprentices. Céreq’s Génération surveys enable us to examine these apprentices’ training-to-work transition over a 20-year period and to confirm the advantages of apprenticeships depending on the level of training and the economic situation.