Career confusion in the 21st century:
Challenges and opportunities Every day, teenagers make important decisions that are relevant to their future. The time and energy they dedicate to learning and the fields of study where they place their greatest efforts profoundly shape the opportunities they will have throughout their lives. A key source of motivation for students to study hard is to realise their dreams for work and life. Those dreams and aspirations, in turn, do not just depend on students’ talents, but they can be hugely influenced by the personal background of students and their families as well as by the depth and breadth of their knowledge about the world of work. In a nutshell, students cannot be what they cannot see. With young people staying in education longer than ever and the labour market automating with unprecedented speed, students need help to make sense of the world of work. In 2018, the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the world’s largest dataset on young people’s educational experiences, collected firstof-its kind data on this, making it possible to explore how much the career dreams of young people have changed over the past 20 years, how closely they are related to actual labour demand, and how closely aspirations are shaped by social background and gender. Studies in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, which follow groups of young people from childhood to adulthood, show that teenagers who combine part-time employment with full-time education do better than would be expected in their school-to-work transitions. They highlight a range of positive benefits, including lower likelihoods of being unemployed or NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training), higher wages, greater chances of pursuing apprenticeships and greater contentment in their career progression (Box 0.1). Engagement with the working world can lead to positive educational, economic and social outcomes for young people, but benefits cannot be taken for granted. By comparing experiences between and within countries, it becomes possible to understand how governments and schools can better support young people as they prepare themselves for working life.