This is a study of young workers. It was undertaken as a comparative analysis of the occupational and educational experiences of school leavers. As such it focuses on the link between the educational system and the labour market and, in particular, on the relevance of the educational experiences of this group of young people to the jobs they entered and implicitly to the lifestyles they lead. Education performs a key function in industrialized society, in transmitting "cultural values and behaviour patterns of the society to its young and potential members". Education, through the agency of the school, performs a dual function - "to internalize in its pupils both commitments and capacities for the successful performance of their adult roles .... and .... to allocate these human resources within the role structure of the adult society. Added to the manifest function of socialization there is this latent function of manpower allocation. The development of this view is that school is a bureaucratic and decisive agency managing the status and life chances of the individual; démocratisation of society and education has transformed what had been an educational into an allocative function.