The Neet. The lost bet

Abstract

In the present scenario, education plays a very strategic role. It is an investment with a postponed productivity, unfortunately uncertain, but necessary. It is, especially today, an investment both on the personal and on the social level, a necessary bet. Especially in this period when the occupation is linked to the capability of handling your own flexibility, the outcomes of the personal fields depend especially on the quantity and quality of personal, cultural, economic and social means which are already at every person’s disposal. With the following risk to start a widespread process of social immobilization and temporary occupation of a larger group of new poor people.

The “Neet”, an acronym for “Not Educational, Employment or Training” are, potential, some of these new poor. They are less qualified people or however they are not ready to improve their own competences according to a life long learning plan in order to respond to the requirements of a market that calls for a competition upwards. Neet risk strongly to face a situation of structural unemployment which will force them to a condition of “irreversibly” weak people, with following expenses as lack of working forces both on a personal level but also on a economic and social level.

Within this worrying and dangerous phenomenon, women have a particular weakness, that is a result of traditional gender representation and specific labor market characteristics. This analysis is focused on Apulian female Neet, on their school career and the educational idea, on their strategies of seeking a job, and on their future perspectives. And it aimed to observe different types of female Neet, according to the complexity of this phenomenon.