Focus on: The Long Shadow of NEET

Not many sociological concepts make it into the Urban Dictionary. The fact that NEET – young people Neither in Employment nor in Education or Training – is there demonstrates the enormity and permanence of the phenomenon as well as the social anxieties it has generated. In 2016, a third of the planet's youth was NEET, while almost 17 million young Europeans aged 20 - 34, or 1 in every 5 were NEET. Young people have begun to use the acronym to describe themselves. "I am a NEET," they say, or "soy ni-ni" in Spanish and "sou nem-nem" in Portuguese. More...