Among the many Italian emergencies there is one that is taking on dimensions never seen before. Let’s talk about Neeti.e. young people who do not study, do not work and are not included in training courses, which have reached the record among the 27 EU countries: in the 15-34 age group they have exceeded 3 million, they are 3,047,000 to be precise, according to the photograph taken by the government at the end of 2020 and published in the decree of the Ministry of Youth Policies-Work for the adoption of the «Neet Working, emergence and orientation of inactive young people» plan.
Young people in Italy
The more than 3 million Neet children represent 25.1% of young Italians between the ages of 15 and 34, practically 1 in 4. Not only that. 1.7 million are women. In short, a real army which, instead of shrinking, has been implemented year by year, amplifying the gaps at the international level. Practically, after Turkey (33.6%), Montenegro (28.6%) and Macedonia (27.6%), in 2020 Italy was the country with the highest NEET rate. In the last months of 2020 the Covid made the picture worse.
Eurostat, OECD, Istat have shown that in Italy one in two women does not work and 25% of girls under 30 are Neet. Of the 8.6 million women in this condition in Europe, one third belongs to Italy. The rate of early school leavers is also high. In the second quarter of 2020, with us, the training course was interrupted very early for 13.5% of young people between 18 and 24 years old (they are young people who have at most the middle school certificate).
The lost generation
The identikit of this “lost generation”, as the premier Mario recently defined it Draghi, it is quite clear: in the school age group (15-19 years) the Italian Neets are 75% more than the EU average; in the university bracket (20-24) they are 70% more. In summary, one in 3 young people between 20 and 24 years old is Neet, while among the very young (15-19 years old) 1 in 10 is out of the world of school and work.
The situation is worse for women. The “pink” share among the NEETs goes from 45% in the 15-19 age group to 66% of the more mature one (30-34). Pointing the magnifying glass, among the more than 3 million Neet 15-34 year olds, the unemployed, i.e. those who do not have a job but are looking for it, are about 1 million, while the inactive, i.e. those who do not have a job but are not looking for it , are the remaining 2 million. Neets generally have a low educational qualification (around 27%).