Is the distribution of NEETs and early leavers from education and training converging across the regions of the European Union?

ABSTRACT

Literature on education and training highlights two factors that impinge on the distribution of early leaving (ELET) and exclusion from employment and training (NEET) across EU regions. One of these factors lies in the institutions that regulate the transition from education and training to employment at the national level. Over time, these institutions have constituted a Universalistic regime in Scandinavia, an Employment-Centred regime in Central Europe, a Liberal Regime in the UK and Ireland, a Sub-Protective regime in Southern Western Europe and an array of Post-Socialist regimes. The other factor lies at the local and regional levels of governance. In some regions, diverse stakeholders are capable to encourage early school leavers to undertake education and training again, and have constructed complex schemes of vocational education and training that embrace apprenticeships, secondary and tertiary education. By exploring the regional distribution of ELET and NEET rates between 2003 and 2015, our findings report mixed trends of convergence. While in Universalistic and Employment-Centred regimes we find out convergence insofar as the more vulnerable regions catch up, in Liberal, Sub- Protective and Post- Socialist regimes catch-up effects are weak and not significant, and top performing regions deviate from the rest.

KEYWORDS:

• Territorial disparities
• youth opportunity
• youth transitions
• school-to-work transition
• regional governance

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 According to Walther (2017, 2006), school-to-work regimes were classified as: Universalistic regime (DK, FI, SE, NO); Employment-centred regime (AT, BE, DE, FR, LU, NL), Liberal regime (UK, IE); Mediterranean/Sub protective regime (EL, ES, IT, CY, PT); Post-socialist regime (BG, CZ, EE, HU, LT, LV, PL, RO, SK).

Additional information

Funding

Research for this paper was conducted within the project YOUNG ADULLLT – Policies Supporting Young People in their Life Course. A Comparative Perspective of Lifelong Learning and Inclusion in Education and Work in Europe [European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation]. This work was supported by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación [Juan de la Cierva/ FJCI-2016-28588].

Notes on contributors

Xavier Rambla

Xavier Rambla is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). In recent years, he has participated in research on lifelong learning policies in the European Union, the Civil Society Education Fund, and Education for All in Latin America. Rambla is co-convenor of the education policy network of the European Educational Research Association. He has been a short-term guest lecturer in the areas of social science and education at different universities in Europe and Latin America.

Rosario Scandurra

Rosario Scandurra is Juan de la Cierva Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Sociology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He is doctor in Sociology from the Universat de Barcelona and master in Public and Social Policies from the University Pompeu Fabra & Johns Hopkins University. His research interests has focused on educational and skills inequalities and how these inequalities accumulate during the life course. His work contributes to education and public policy debates focusing on educational opportunities, school-to-work transitions, education segregation and spatial inequalities.