This thesis investigates empirically three topics related, respectively, to school leaving, unemployment and retirement. It consists of three independent research articles, accompanied by a general introduction and a conclusion section. Chapter 1 investigates the extent to which the demand for post-compulsory education of British 16-year-olds responds to local labour market conditions. The findings show that prevailing unemployment rates influence the schooling decisions of students from a less affluent family background, while students from better-off families tend to enrol in post-compulsory education irrespectively of labour market conditions. Factors associated with the family’s socio economic status, such as parental tastes for education and social norms, are arguably at the base of the different behaviours. Chapter 2 analyses the persistence in unemployment incidence during the last two decades. The methodology employed allows disentangling the true state dependence from the confounding role played by observed and unobserved heterogeneity. The evidence supports that unemployment experiences "scar" British workers by compromising their future employability. The findings also suggest a countercyclical pattern of true state dependence as unemployment scars more during recessions. Chapter 3 studies the extent to which retirement influences the cognitive capital of British older workers. The analysis relies on an instrumental variable approach to address the endogeneity bias. Consistent with the "use it or lose it" hypothesis, the results suggests that retirement contributes significantly to the cognitive decline suffered at older ages by British workers. The final section of the thesis summarises the main findings of the three chapters and discusses policy implications and extensions
