H.16. NEET Trajectories between Educational Inequality, Labour Precarity and Social Well-Being

The NEET category, despite its known limitations, remains a crucial tool for understanding youth exclusion. Far from a mere administrative label, it works as a diagnostic lens that makes visible young people who would otherwise remain outside institutional radar: those navigating fragmented transitions, unstable labour markets, territorial inequalities and constrained opportunity structures. Recent evidence shows that, in Europe, declining NEET rates do not necessarily correspond to a reduction in inequalities; instead, exclusion is reorganised along persistent lines of territory, gender and social origin.

This panel invites contributions that examine NEET conditions not as simple inactivity but as the intersection of structural constraints, institutional arrangements and biographical trajectories. We welcome research on how educational systems, labour-market fragmentation and welfare regimes shape the risks of temporary or persistent NEETness, and how these experiences accumulate over time. Particular attention is given to studies addressing the social and psychological dimensions of NEET experiences, including health, well-being and the meanings that young people attribute to non-participation.

The panel aims to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue connecting sociology of education, youth and labour studies, psychology, gender and disability studies, and social policy. All methodological approaches are welcome, from quantitative analyses to qualitative and mixed-method designs. By moving beyond the limits of the label, the session seeks to use NEETness as a lens for understanding how societies distribute opportunities, produce constraints and shape young people’s access to adult citizenship, with particular attention to intersectional approaches to youth inequalities.