Education and duration of employment relationships

March 10, 2005

Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLS79) show that individuals with a high school diploma or higher were more likely to have had an employment relationship lasting at least 5 years by age 30 or 35 than were high school dropouts.

[Chart data—TXT]

Even though high school dropouts left school the earliest, were in the labor market for the longest time—and therefore had the most time to start down a career path—they were the least likely to have had lengthy employment relationships. Only 36 percent of high school dropouts had held a job for 5 years or more by age 35.

In contrast, those with at least some college or a bachelor’s degree made the transition to lengthier employment relationships the fastest. By age 35, 66 percent of those with some college and 63 percent of those with a college degree had held a job for 5 years.

These data are from the BLS National Longitudinal Surveys program. For additional information, see "The transition from school to work: education and work experiences," by Julie A. Yates, Monthly Labor Review, February 2005.