Industrial Relations Journal zyxwvut 242 ISSN zyxwvutsr 0019-8692 zyxwvutsrq Roads to work: school-to-work transition patterns in Germany and the United States Christoph F. Buechtemann, Juergen Schupp and Dana Soloff zy Most industrialised countries in conditions of intensive, global econ- omic competition recognise the central importance of workforces with adequate levels of education and skills. This article compares the educational and training outcomes during the critical school-to-work transition period in two countries with very different institutional arrangements-the USA and Germany. In recent years, it has become widely accepted among policy makers and business leaders alike that improving workforce skills-especially of front-line workers zyxwv - plays an important role in meeting the com- petitive challenges facing highly industrial- ised, high wage countries in today’s global economic environment. In the United States of America, like in many other countries, there have been growing concerns about intermediate skill shortages and deficits in workforce preparation preventing compan- ies from constantly improving the quality of their products and services, implementing product and process innovations, cutting overhead costs, and moving towards leaner production practices. In this context, Germany’s ’dual system’ zyxw 0 Christoph Buechtemann is a Senior Economist at the Human Capital Department, RAND, Santa Monica, California; Dana Soloff is a Sociologist at the same Department; Juergen Schupp is a Research Associate at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), Berlin. of apprenticeship training is frequently cited as a model for providing non-college bound youth with a broad base of work related skil1s:The ample supply of a broadly trained, ’polyvalent’ workforce is seen as one of the core factors underlying German industry’s impressive export performance in the area of technically sophisticated, high quality products. As one step towards revitalising the US economy and helping American firms regain a competitive edge among industrial- ised countries, the new administration under President Clinton has proposed the estab- lishment of a nationwide apprenticeship system after the German model. In Germany, at the same time, business associations and policy makers have recently expressed con- cerns about the declining attractiveness of apprenticeship training in the eyes of Ger- man youth and have warned against the emergence of a US type ’college culture’ that would bereave German industry of the supply of intermediate workforce skills needed to sustain Germany’s success in the past[ 11. @ Basil Blackwell Ltd. 1993, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 lJF, UK and 238 Main St., Cambridge, MA 02142, USA. zy School-to-work patterns in Germany and the United States 97