Abstract:

Anyone could become a NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) person at a certain moment in his/her life. During the "NEET state” a persons’ accumulation of human capital and working experience stops, so the impact of being a NEET is more important on youth due to the long term negative consequences. A lot of studies aimed to identify the factors that increase the risk of becoming a NEET. Some of them pointed to individual characteristics such as gender, level of education, age of becoming a parent, etc. (Thompson, 2011, Serracant, 2014). Other studies evidenced the role of family characteristics, such as belonging to vulnerable families, households with low work intensity, social class etc. (Bynner, Parsons, 2002, Thompson, 2011). Also features of the educational systems and local economies were identified as push and pull factors for becoming a NEET (Rees, Williamson, Istance, 1996, Bynner, Parsons, 2002, Thompson, 2011,). But the previous history of employment or the job searching behavior, focused on the education-job match were approached to a lower extent in relation to NEET, but mainly under the studies dedicated to youth unemployment. This paper aims to analyze if the previous history of mismatched employment or the job searching among mismatched jobs lead to a higher risk of becoming a NEET and to higher risk of being trapped in the state of NEET for longer periods of time. In order to reach this aim we use multivariate analyses on a survey carried out in 2016 among 519 Romanian NEETs aged 15-24 years old.

Keywords:

Youth NEET, mismatched employment, job searching behavior, multivariate analyses.