Understanding the role of post-compulsory education on health and wellbeing in
England and Germany
Education is globally recognised as being
beneficial to young people’s life chances and
future prospects, whether in terms of labour
market success or improved health and wellbeing.
Less is known about whether all types of
education bring about such benefits, particularly
whether there are differences between vocational
and academic routes in post-compulsory
education.
The ESRC-funded project Education and Social
Outcomes of Young People: Promoting Success set
out to understand the role of different types of
post-compulsory education in the formation of
social outcomes. In order to do this, researchers
compared the outcomes of young people in
England and Germany, who had completed their
education in the 1990s.
Table 1: Key characteristics of English and
German education transitions in the 1990s
categories: academic, vocational, mixed or no
further education. The mixed category comprised
those who had achieved both academic and
vocational qualification (in any order) while no
further education consisted of the people who left
the educational system after compulsory
education.
Figure 1 shows the proportion of people in each
country who followed these trajectories. Postcompulsory education in England in the 1990s
included 16-18 year olds, which explains much of
the difference between the proportions of people
following academic and mixed trajectories in the
two countries. The large percentage of young
people pursuing a vocational education in
Germany is particularly noteworthy.
Figure 1: Proportion of people in each
educational category in final sample
60
England
Germany
50
Compulsory leaving
age 16 years
Low formal
stratification of the
education system
Weak links between
education and
industry; transition
from school to work
problematic
Multiple changes to
vocational education
and training
qualifications and
apprenticeship
schemes make it
difficult to navigate
Compulsory leaving
age 18 years
Highly stratified
education system
from the age of 10
Strong links between
education and
industry; transition
from school to work
fairly easy
Well established
system of vocational
education and training
with strong tradition
and formalised
structure
40
Using information on educational qualifications
from the British Household Panel Survey for
England and the German Socio-Economic Panel for
Germany, young people’s post-compulsory
education was grouped into four distinct
% 30
20
10
0
academic vocational
England
mixed
Germany
no further
education
The researchers then analysed a number of
outcomes to understand whether there were
differences depending on the educational
category people were in. A separate briefing is
available on our website on civic participation
outcomes.
This briefing focuses on the results for the health
and well-being domain, examining the role of type
of post-compulsory education on two outcomes:
self-rated health and smoking. For self-rated
health, people were asked to rate their own health
on a scale from poor to excellent.
The smoking outcome was measured by asking
respondents whether or not they currently
smoked.

GCSE attainment emerged as a strong
predictor of health benefits
Key findings – Germany
In each case, the outcomes for the type of postcompulsory education are compared with those in
the “no further education” category. The analyses
were conducted separately for men and women
since this time of transition from school to work
has been shown to affect men and women
differently. As family and social background
factors (such as parental education, parental
occupational class and young people’s prior
educational attainment) have been shown to
influence both education and life outcomes in
England and Germany, a further analysis included
these factors to see if the results differed.
Results
The analysis revealed that in general, postcompulsory education was associated with
positive health benefits in both England and
Germany. However, the results were not the
same for both countries and differed by gender.
Additionally, when social and educational
background factors were included, the effect of
post-compulsory education lessened, and in some
cases disappeared, indicating the significance of
these influences both on young people’s
educational tracks and their later life outcomes.
Key findings - England




Women and men who stayed on in education
post-16 were less likely to smoke than those
who left at 16
Men who stayed on post-16 were more likely
to say they were in excellent health
Women with academic qualifications
reported better health than their peers who
left education
The positive effect of vocational education on
men’s health and smoking for both sexes
persisted when family and educational
background
factors
were
included





Vocational training was linked to better selfreported health for women, not for men
Academic and mixed trajectories were
associated with reduced smoking for women
Academic trajectories were associated with a
reduction in smoking for men
With the addition of background controls,
post-compulsory education was no longer
associated with differences in health
outcomes, except in the case of smoking for
women with academic qualifications
Having an Abitur was a strong predictor of
reduced smoking
Conclusions and policy implications
Young people from more disadvantaged
backgrounds should be encouraged to continue in
post-compulsory education in order to access the
same health benefits as their more advantaged
peers. The recent increase to 18 of the compulsory
education leaving age in the UK should therefore
have a beneficial effect on young people’s health
and health behaviours.
The results also indicate that health behaviours in
both countries are established early in life and are
influenced by prior education and parental
background. A policy focus on health education at
school-level might help to moderate such health
inequalities which are likely only to increase with
age.
For more details see:
www.sussex.ac.uk/cie/promotingsuccess