Hat sich das duale System in den neuen Ländern erfolgreich etabliert?

In this paper, the transition from firm-based vocational training into the labor market is compared for East and West Germany in the first half of the 1990s. Special attention is given to the extent of unemployment after finishing training and its impact on the following entry into the first job. The paper aims at answering the following questions: How big are East-West-differences at the entry to the labour market? Did these differences decrease towards the middle of the 1990s? Are discrepancies between East and West related to diverging structural labour market conditions and individual differences of the leavers of the training system? By comparing the patterns of entering the labour market in both parts of the country, the paper aims at answering the question whether the dual system of vocational training has been established successfully in East Germany during the first half of the 1990s or whether an ongoing disorder at the ‘second threshold’ points towards a (temporary) failure of the ‘transition regime’ to the labour market. The empirical analyses are based on data from the ‘IAB-Beschäftigtenstichprobe 1975–1995’.