Abstract
This paper investigates to what extent the likelihood of young people being long-term NEET can be explained by low literacy skills, how this varies across advanced countries, and how this cross-national variation can be explained by education and social policies. We use PIAAC data and include macro-level indicators on education and social policies. We analyze the likelihood of being long-term NEET versus being in employment or in education/training among some 34,000 young people aged 20-30 from 25 countries. We find that low-literate young people are more likely to be long-term NEET. While NEET risks are associated with countries' institutional characteristics, this does not mean that these characteristics and policies always work in favour of low-literate young people. Although high levels of (enabling) ALMP generally reduce the risk of being NEET, they do so less for low-literate young people. Additionally, young people living in social-democratic welfare states are less likely to be NEET, but low-literate young people seem to profit less from this.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 217-251 |
Number of pages | 35 |
Journal | Journal of Youth Studies |
Volume | 27 |
Issue number | 2 |
Early online date | 9 Sept 2022 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2024 |
Keywords
- NEET
- low literacy skills
- education
- social policies
- PIAAC
- TEMPORARY EMPLOYMENT
- SCHOOL DROPOUT
- MARKET
- UNEMPLOYMENT
- TRANSITION
- STATE
- FAMILY
- RISKS