Not in employment, education or training: the long-term NEET spells of young people in New Zealand

This paper uses longitudinal data from the Survey of Families, Incomes and Employment to examine the patterns and duration of NEET spells – episodes of being ‘Not in Employment, Education or Training’ – among young people in New Zealand. The data cover the period from 2002 to 2010. We find that that majority of young people were NEET for short periods while in their teens or early 20s and at least 25–30 percent experienced a long-term NEET spell (lasting for six months or longer). Long-term NEET spells were particularly common among early school leavers, those with low school qualifications and teenage parents, and were more frequent than average among those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Conditional on having a long-term spell, total durations of inactivity were also higher among the higher-risk groups. During a 3–4 year follow-up period, average NEET rates declined sharply but the teenagers who had had a long-term NEET spell remained more likely than other teenagers to have further periods of inactivity.