Page 355 - Štremfel, Urška, and Maša Vidmar (eds.). 2018. Early School Leaving: Contemporary European Perspectives. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut.
P. 355
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Why is ESL a Problem for Contemporary
(EU) Society?
Urška Štremfel and Klaudija Šterman Ivančič
Synopsis
EU policy documents stress that ESL holds important long-term
economic consequences (economic growth) and macro-social con-
sequences (social cohesion). Research calculating the financial costs
of ESL very convincingly supports these arguments, while there are
various difficulties in quantifying the social consequences of ESL.
According to critical policy approaches, this potentially narrows un-
derstanding of the problem of ESL to its economic dimension.
Summary
ESL is commonly regarded as an urgent and serious problem for
both individuals and EU society as a whole. Taking different classi-
fications into consideration, the article focuses on the medium- and
long-term fiscal (economic) and social consequences of ESL. It re-
views various economic studies presenting ESL as a huge obstacle to
further national and EU economic growth. These studies are chief-
ly based on a calculation of the estimated costs (including lower tax
revenues and/or higher unemployment and welfare payments and/or
higher public health expenditures and/or higher police expenditures
and/or higher criminal justice expenditure) per individual ESLer
lifetime and range from EUR 100,000 to EUR 1 million. Studies pre-
senting aggregate financial gains expected from reducing ESL are
also referred to. In addition, the weaknesses of the methodologies
355
Why is ESL a Problem for Contemporary
(EU) Society?
Urška Štremfel and Klaudija Šterman Ivančič
Synopsis
EU policy documents stress that ESL holds important long-term
economic consequences (economic growth) and macro-social con-
sequences (social cohesion). Research calculating the financial costs
of ESL very convincingly supports these arguments, while there are
various difficulties in quantifying the social consequences of ESL.
According to critical policy approaches, this potentially narrows un-
derstanding of the problem of ESL to its economic dimension.
Summary
ESL is commonly regarded as an urgent and serious problem for
both individuals and EU society as a whole. Taking different classi-
fications into consideration, the article focuses on the medium- and
long-term fiscal (economic) and social consequences of ESL. It re-
views various economic studies presenting ESL as a huge obstacle to
further national and EU economic growth. These studies are chief-
ly based on a calculation of the estimated costs (including lower tax
revenues and/or higher unemployment and welfare payments and/or
higher public health expenditures and/or higher police expenditures
and/or higher criminal justice expenditure) per individual ESLer
lifetime and range from EUR 100,000 to EUR 1 million. Studies pre-
senting aggregate financial gains expected from reducing ESL are
also referred to. In addition, the weaknesses of the methodologies
355
