AGATE

TREE (Transitions from education to employment) is a nationwide, longitudinal survey on the transition of young people from school to adult life (transition). The study focuses on the educational and employment pathways after leaving compulsory school. The first sample (TREE1) comprises more than 6,000 young people who participated in the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) project in 2000 and were released from compulsory schooling in the same year. The sample is representative of the national and linguistic regions. A second sample (TREE2) of almost 10,000 young people has been surveyed on a longitudinal basis since 2016. This makes TREE one of the few multi-cohort studies in the world that allow cohort comparison analyses.
The TREE1 sample was surveyed nine times between 2001 and 2014, the last time in 2014 at an average age of around 30 years. The data are available to the scientific community as scientific use files for analysis (see section Data). They are among the most widely used social science data sets in Switzerland. In 2019, a tenth follow-up survey of the cohort will take place at an average age of about 35 years.
In terms of methodology, TREE is a prospective longitudinal survey based on random samples. It is conducted by means of a combination of telephone interviews (CATI) and supplementary written survey instruments (CASI, Paper & Pencil). On the one hand, the survey instruments aim to trace the educational, employment and other biographical developments of the interviewees in as much detail as possible (reconstruction to the month). On the other hand, the progression data are enriched with an extensive set of context data (for details see "Concepts and scales").
Since 2008, TREE as a social science data infrastructure has been financed mainly by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). The study has been based at the University of Bern since 2015.