Regional disparities of the NEET youth rate in Romania

Abstract

The issue of young Romanians in the NEET category is a particularly sinuous one, with a vast range of nuances and a sufficiently consistent casuistry. In Romania, the interest for this category of population is even greater, because the share of NEET youth is the highest in the EU-27: 19.4% in 2024. Economic disparities in Romania’s development regions are also compatible with other dimensions of inequality, such as life expectancy, employment and unemployment rates, schooling, private and public material resources. All this leads to relatively large differences between regional NEET youth rates, across different age groups. The paper presents a brief analysis of the NEET youth group evolution at the level of the development regions of Romania. Regional disparities of NEET youth rates have been quantified by using statistical methods. The obtained results confirm the negative trends in terms of increasing regional disparities of this population segment in Romania and allow to highlight their determinants.