NEETs: a psychosocial profile

According to the definition provided by Eurostat, NEETs refer to young people aged between 15 and 34 who are not in employment, education or education or training (Eurostat, 2022). The definition first appeared in the 1990s in Britain (SEU, 1999). Today, the label has expanded to include a much wider range of young people, in terms of age and characteristics.

Hence the need to identify subgroups (Mascherini & Ledermaier, 2016) according to the permanence in the condition and the motivations that led the young person to become a NEET.

NEETs therefore represent an extremely diverse group with very different social characteristics, living conditions and family and personal history. Nevertheless, it is possible to trace in the phenomenon a category particularly vulnerable to the risk of social exclusion from traditional adult life. Several studies have highlighted some factors that contribute to the possibility of being in this condition: inequality variables (economic and social); negative experiences with the education system; but the most influential variable would seem to be education both at the individual and family level: the status of NEET is more widespread in families with low levels of education, who, not being able to provide the right support on the education system, guide their children towards poor and ineffective choices or lack of choice. The family background factor is also inevitably intertwined with what can be considered individual characteristics or factors of the NEET condition.

Among the main individual causes, having low self-esteem and self-efficacy and poor social skills certainly prevails (Raffe, 2010). Young NEETs, in fact, have greater difficulties in transition periods such as the transition to adulthood or the transition from school to work, periods marked by uncertainty, risks and stress. Very often to escape such situations they seek greater security and protection in "compensatory conditions". One of the most significant and widespread, especially in our country, is the permanence in the parental home even in adulthood, to take advantage of both the absence of personal risks or challenges and the certain presence of social and economic guarantees (Szcześniak and Rondón, 2012).

It emerges from this picture that the phenomenon of NEETs also has a relational and not merely individual nature, just as it is evident that the problem is not only related to the work sphere but affects the entire existential condition of the young person.