NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training)
Francesco Agrusti e Anna Aluffi Pentini
Roma Tre University

NEET, the acronym for “Not in Education, Employment, or Training”, indicates young people in different age groups, 15-24, 15-29 or 15-34, who are not working and not engaged in formal education or training. The term NEET appeared in the UK in the late 1990s following the 1988 introduction of amendments to the legislation on unemployment benefits for young people. It is now used throughout the European Union, extending its original definition to include both the unemployed and economically and educationally inactive individuals. Although NEET is widely used in international research, the definition of this term continues to be complex, heterogeneous and problematic (Yates & Payne, 2006). It is a term that defines youth by virtue of what they are not, thus running the risk of fostering a negative perception of a diverse population of young people who are experiencing different situations and hardships, especially due to the social, political, economic and cultural variables that influence the development of this phenomenon in different countries and have widened its field of analysis (Quintini et al., 2007).
In light of this complexity, Eurofound (2012) has identified six factors that increase the possibility of a young person’s falling into the NEET category:

• low levels of education;
• disability;
• migratory backgroundo;
• difficult family environment;
• living in remote areas;
• limited family income.

These factors must be examined at three levels: macro (the economy, educational system), meso (educational institutions, employers) and micro (the individual).
In relation to Italy, the Eurostat 2018 data show that it is the European country with the highest percentage of NEETs (23.4%), i.e. young people between 15 and 29 years of age who are not working, studying or training. This is a very complex and heterogeneous arena in which individual and social levels intertwine, and yet it is possible to point to a common element: the risk of marginality and social exclusion (Alfieri et al., 2014).
The 2020 UNICEF report, titled “The silence of NEETs”, examined 41 of the richest countries in the world and found that the status of children setting off from disadvantaged conditions worsens when effective educational policies are not applied. This also holds true for Italy, and indeed the above-cited report analyzes the situation in light of the literature on this topic to identify a typology that may be defined as ‘Mediterranean’. This type is characterized on one hand by flexible employment contracts, protracted economic dependence on the family and lengthy training processes that physiologically delay the individual’s entry into the world of work. On the other hand, it involves the individualization and differentiation of individual life trajectories that give rise to new forms of fragility: choosing school curricula to obtain better and higher levels of education is one of the tendencies that not only undermines NEETs’ chances of entering the world of work but also impedes their access to stable employment positions imbued with a certain degree of social relevance (UNICEF, 2020).
As at-risk subjects, NEETs are among the target groups of the RE-SERVES project. The project promotes the design of new educational policies and practices and the use of massive distance learning courses to improve their employability and inclusion by helping them acquire specific skills and competences.

Selected references

Alfieri, S., Rosina, A., Sironi, E., Marta, E., & Marzana, D. (2014). Un ritratto dei giovani Neet italiani, La condizione giovanile in Italia. Rapporto Giovani 2014. Il Mulino.

European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. (2012). NEETs, young people not in employment, education or training: Characteristics, costs and policy responses in Europe. Publ. Off. of the Europ. Union. http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/sites/default/files/ef_files/pubdocs/2012/54/en/1/EF1254EN.pdf.

Quintini, G., Martin, J. P., & Martin, S. (2007). The Changing Nature of the School-toWork Transition Process in OECD Countries, in OECD Factbook 2007, Paris: OECD Publishing.

Yates, S., & Payne, M. (2006) Not so NEET? A Critique of the Use of ‘NEET’ in Setting Targets for Interventions with Young People. Journal of Youth Studies, 9(3), 329-344. DOI: 10.1080/13676260600805671.

UNICEF. (2020). Il silenzio dei NEET. Giovani in bilico tra rinuncia e desiderio.     https://www.unicef.it/Allegati/Il_silenzio_dei_NEET.pdf