This article examines how certain contextual factors explain levels of education attainment and participation amongst youths in 30 European countries, whilst also exploring the scope for action of education policy when dealing with these issues. Through simple OLS regressions, we first evaluate the impact of a group of contextual indicators on the percentage of the population aged 20 to 24 having completed at least upper secondary education (education attainment) and the number of students aged 18 as a percentage of the corresponding age population (education participation). Secondly, through multivariate OLS analysis, we identify the net impact of some of these factors on the levels of education participation of 18-year-olds. The results show the significance of three factors: low-skilled occupation, the structure of public spending on education, and the importance of vocational education programmes in secondary education.