What is Giving Compass?
We connect donors to learning resources and ways to support community-led solutions. Learn more about us.
Giving Compass' Take:
• Research from Brookings identifies interventions that can help disadvantaged youth find high-quality jobs.
• Which of these, or which combination, is most appropriate in your area?
• Learn more about career and technical education.
Factors that shape job quality among 29-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds:
- Work-based learning incorporating positive relationships with adults.
- Earlier experiences in the labor market.
- Educational credentials and training.
Recommendations to improve the employment prospects of young people growing up in disadvantaged households:
- Expand work-based learning within high school career and technical education.
- Increase completion rates of post-secondary degrees, with an explicit focus on quality and equity.
- Improve on-ramps to employment for teens and young adults.
- Promote further research and action on the role of positive relationships in employment and training programs for youth and young adults.
Read the full article about high-quality jobs by Martha Ross, Kristin Anderson Moore, Kelly Murphy, Nicole Bateman, Alex DeMand, and Vanessa Sacks at Brookings.
Helping young people prepare to engage in work and life as productive adults is a central challenge for any society. Yet, many young people in the United States find that the path from education to employment and economic security in adulthood is poorly marked or inaccessible. As a result, those from low-income and less educated families have lower rates of high school graduation, college enrollment, and college completion. Moreover, once they enter the labor market, they have lower employment rates and wages.