Are youth in Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro scarred on their road from school to work?
Youth in transition countries in a much worse position than their EU counterparts Youth who acquired their first job are experiencing long transitions from school to work: on average, from about 21 months in Montenegro, to 24 months in Serbia and 25 months in Macedonia, being much longer than that of their EU peers. This may leave scars for their future employment outcomes. Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, once part of the same state, Yugoslavia, shared the same economic and political systems. After 1991, they embarked on transition to a market economy, with somewhat similar paths, largely shaped by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, though with country specifics and peculiarities which sometimes produced different economic outcomes. Contrary to other socialist countries which had zero open unemployment, the ex-Yugoslav republics had relatively high unemployment even at the beginning of 1990s (prior to the Yugoslav dissolution) (Mojsoska, 2005; Bartlett...