Mastercard Foundation to support ILO to create database on youth labour statistics

This database will provide a comprehensive set of indicators on the labour market situation of people in the 15-29 age group and will serve as a central repository of international youth labour statistics. 


ILO | Updated: 13-03-2019 21:39 IST | Created: 13-03-2019 21:39 IST
Mastercard Foundation to support ILO to create database on youth labour statistics
The ILO houses the world’s largest stock of labour force survey micro datasets, which include individual and household level information that is used to produce official national statistics. Image Credit: Wikimedia commons

The ILO and the Mastercard Foundation have launched a project to provide comprehensive national-level data on youth in the labour market, including indicators on the transition from school to work. 

During the one-year project, the Mastercard Foundation will support the ILO in creating a new, regularly updated database, called YouthSTATS. The database was first produced by the ILO as part of its partnership with the Mastercard Foundation Work4Youth Project that concluded in 2014. 

This database will provide a comprehensive set of indicators on the labour market situation of people in the 15-29 age group and will serve as a central repository of international youth labour statistics. 

The ILO houses the world’s largest stock of labour force survey micro datasets, which include individual and household level information that is used to produce official national statistics. In recent years, the ILO’s Department of Statistics has invested considerable resources to collect more than 9,000 national labour force survey micro datasets from more than 140 countries worldwide. 

ILO experts systematically process these national micro datasets to obtain new, harmonized datasets that are then added to the ILO’s Harmonized Microdata collection. This process ensures that consistent definitions and international statistical standards are applied throughout the collection, thereby enhancing international comparability and facilitating cross-country analysis. 

“A key advantage of basing YouthSTATS indicators on the ILO’s microdata collection is that this will facilitate the sustainable production of disaggregated data – by age, sex, economic industry, formal and informal sectors, occupation, level of educational attainment, and other pertinent variables. The disaggregated data, in turn, will provide insights on challenges faced by specific population groups,” said Steven Kapsos, who heads the ILO’s Data Production and Analysis Unit. 

“The pioneering School-to-Work Transition surveys showed the importance of understanding, in detail, what this pivotal period looks like for young people around the world,” said Lindsay Wallace, Director of Strategy and Learning at the Mastercard Foundation. “We are pleased that the ILO will be able to make this information available on an ongoing basis for global, regional, and national decision-makers.” 

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