Spatialities of being a young NEET in an era of turbulence: a critical account of regional resilience across the Mediterranean EU South

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the relationship between young individuals that are Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEETs) and regional resilience across the Mediterranean European Union South. It attempts a significant contribution to the literature since academic readings on youth studies have partly overlooked potential interlinkages with regional resilience, while regional studies have neglected to assess the resilience of the young cohorts of the labour force. The paper builds on a geographical political economy approach and employs a mixed-research method, calculating regional resistance and recovery indices and drawing upon informed expert interviews. It scrutinises labour market resilience in terms of youth employment and NEETs against the 2007/08 crisis and documents which regions have been (less) resistant to youth unemployment and inactivity. Thereupon, it locates four factors of low resilience in regional youth labour markets, namely structural deficiencies, path-dependence, labour market segmentation and informal practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth labour market
• youth unemployment
• regional employment
• regional resilience
• EU South

Acknowledgments

This article has been prepared in the framework of the project ‘A Place for Youth in Mediterranean EEA: Resilient and Sharing Economies for NEETs (YOUTHShare)', which is funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norway grants fund for Youth Employment (http://www.youthshare–project.org, 2018–2022).

Competing interests statement

The authors confirm that they have no competing interests to declare.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).