by Alice Monticone, Master's degree in Sociology, University of Turin
The number of young people who are neither in employment, education or training (NEET) is an indicator developing in recent years. The job market tends to disregard subjective resources for individuals looking for a job. Young Italians are developing a serious frustration about future prospects. My work investigates the relationship between job market insecurity, the NEET status and the use of their subjective resources, for example, a young person’s courage. For this reason, I have studied different types of literature: social and psychological consequences of NEET and quantitative data.
Compared with other young people of developed countries, young Italians leave their own family home later. The unfavourable welfare system tends to discourage individual autonomy. My purpose is to identify which factors influence a NEET: my work shows that some of these factors are education, family background and job insecurity.
Discussion: Starting from the interviews, NEET people had a lot of difficulties during the high school, especially with the choice of the best school able to meet their interests (some of them dropped out of school prematurely).
The job insecurity influences their working and social life: NEETs tend to postpone the departure from their home because they wait for a quality and guaranteed job. NEETs are characterised by a disorientation that has a negative effect on their well-being and self-esteem. However, the NEET population uses some subjective resources for coping with this condition: courage, desire to learn and be useful in everyday life.
