Kuban’s NEET Youth: Pathways to EET Status

Abstract

The author’s focus is on the identification of the trajectories of young people moving from NEET to EET status in the labor market. Of interest to the research community is an explanation of the specificity within the transition between being unemployed, not learning and EET. In Russia, the share of young people aged 15–19 who are NEETs increased from 5 to 5.8 per cent between 2016 and 2020, while the share of those aged 20–24 decreased from 15.9 to 13.6 per cent. The dynamics of the Russian NEET indicator is driven by changes in the number of young people aged 15–24 and their level of participating in the education system. Academic research tends to focus on the risks, i. e. the negative consequences of becoming NEET. The positive factors that enable young people to cope with becoming NEET are marginalized in the analytical discourse. Through applied research using semi-structured interviews, the author identified three pathways of Kuban young people’s transition from NEET to EET status: an intentional, an unfinished and a coerced transition. The research design is based on the interpretation of the term NEET as a social construct, which was developed by policy makers as a label for a particular group of young people. Theoretical research contours are shaped by the concepts of fragmentation, non-linearity and de-standardisation of youth transitions to work (A. Walther) and by the bio-ecological theory of human development (U. Bronfenbrenner). The empirical research focused on young women aged 16–24 who were either overcoming or had overcome economic inactivity. Informants were selected based on their strong correlation with NEET, as well as their gender, age and educational background. NEETs are defined by a variety of individual, structural and institutional predictors. The informants’ internal resources and the support of their immediate environment are key factors in overcoming the experience of being NEET. Family and individual determinants act both as supporting resources and as barriers to entry into EET. The complex structure of NEET should be taken into account when designing and implementing effective targeted policy with a focus on economically vulnerable unemployed youth.