Are the Inactive the Lazy Counterpart of the Unemployed? - an Empirical Test of Neet

Unemployment figures are the standard indicator to identify young people with  transition problems between education and the labor market. In the US-context indicators such as the »idleness rate« or »disconnected young people« have been introduced to young people with linkage-problems between education and the labor market which are not identified by the unemployment measures. In Europe the corresponding appellation is »NEET«, an acronym for »Not in education, employment or training« which emerged in the European social exclusion debate and became developed as a benchmark indicator at first in the British youth policy and later on in the European Community.

The paper is interested in addressing the following research questions: In how far the NEET concept is able to identify a homogenous group of young people with access problems to the labor market? Are the unemployed and the inactive comparable subgroups, which simple differ by the search activity? Is the group of inactive young people itself a homogeneous group? In how far do country specific institutions and time varying factors such like the business cycle do affect the composition of NEET?

Empirical results based on the European Labour Force Survey data indicate severe differences both between the unemployed and the inactive combined in the NEET concept and within the subgroup of the inactive (diseased or handicapped, family caretaker, waiting for (re)entering education or training or a job-start, demotivated persons without job search or voluntary inactive persons). These groups respond group-specific different to institutions and time varying factors like the business cycle.