What factors could help us understand why young people enter the job market later and later? Why do high school graduates pursue higher education or others return to university? Would continuing education be a solution to unemployment? Drawing on Prandi in Brazil and Beaud & Pialoux in France, this paper advocates that this phenomenon is due to decreased job opportunities. It also discusses the "stiffening" of social mobility despite a higher level of education, in Brazil, or longer studies to be beter prepared before limited job opportunities, in France. Analyzing some life trajectories shows that longer studies are a strategy to better face unemployment and evidence suggests that they are not a temporary trend but inhere to the very logic of capital.
Work and education; Unemployment; Scholastic prolongation
