Social benefits can be thought of as aggregates of individual benefits, though with possible "snowball" effects. Potential social benefits of career guidance fall into the following two main categories: reducing social exclusion and enhancing social development. Guidance is a way of making the structure of society work, by linking individual needs to societal needs on a voluntary basis. It is a significant lubricant of social development. In relation to social exclusion, guidance has both a preventive role--helping young people to avoid exclusion-- and a reintegrative role of supporting those currently excluded to gain access to education and training and the labor market. Guidance delivers social benefits by enhancing educational participation and achievement; reducing the incidence of long-term unemployment among at-risk groups and improving their access to opportunities commensurate with their abilities and aspirations; providing a gateway to education and work for ethnic minorities exposed to discriminatory employment practices and disadvantaged by spatial concentration in areas of reduced employment opportunity; and avoiding the potential social fall-out of greater labor market flexibility. Hypothetically, guidance helps both individuals in general and categories of individuals at particular risk of social exclusion by exerting a positive effect upon educational and training motivation, participation, effort, and persistence; attainment levels; employment changes; and job quality. (YLB)