Youth unemployment has a 'long-term scarring effect' affecting finances and health decades later

Young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) are at risk of long-term “scarring” to their finances, work and health, a new study has warned.

The research, published by University College London (UCL) on Wednesday (29 April), found that being NEET between the ages of 16 and 24 has “long-term consequences for people’s employment, finances, physical and mental health in midlife”.

Researchers discovered members of Generation X (born between 1966 and 1980) experienced worse outcomes at aged 51 the longer they had spent NEET in early adulthood. The impact can lead to “sustained labour market detachment, with knock-on effects on people’s physical and mental health”.

Those who were persistently out of work or learning between ages 16 and 24 were six times as likely to be employed in midlife than those who were always in employment, education or training in early adulthood. They were also three times as likely to report being in poor health. 

The research comes after the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that almost a million 16 to 24-year-olds are currently NEET, with national UK rates at their highest level for a decade. 

Read more:

• Disability and poor health drives number of young people not in work or education to almost a million
• Nearly half of young Brits say health issues will push them out of work. How can we cope without them?
• ‘Cruel’ housing benefit ‘quirk’ forces thousands of vulnerable young people to give up work

The research studied data from more than 8,000 people born in England, Scotland and Wales, going through detailed information on participants’ month-by-month histories of education, employment, and training from age 16 onwards, then examining their outcomes at age 51.

Even short periods of being NEET in early adulthood had long-term negative impacts; men who were NEET for two to three years in early adulthood were twice as likely to report financial difficulties, poor health and psychological distress in midlife. 

Dr Alina Pelikh, co-author of the study, said the findings were “particularly concerning” given the current number of young people who are NEET.

“While only a small minority of the 1970 cohort had never held a job between ages 16 and 24, the severe negative consequences for their later life outcomes are striking,” she said. “Recent data from the ONS suggests that the most vulnerable groups may now be larger and more disadvantaged today than in earlier cohorts. 

“Taken together, our results suggest that the long-term consequences for more recently born generations who are NEET may be at least as severe – and potentially more severe – than those observed in this study, reinforcing the policy relevance of these findings.”

‘This is not young people’s fault’

Former Labour minister and current chair of the social mobility foundation, Alan Milburn, has explained that young people are currently facing a crisis of unemployment, with university graduates struggling to find jobs in record numbers.

“This is not young people’s fault,” he told Big Issue Recruit’s Catherine Parsons. “Sometimes there’s a debate that says, oh, there’s something going on with this generation – it’s the ‘self’ generation, the snowflake generation. I’ve seen no evidence of that.”

He continued: “I’ve talked to literally hundreds of young people… I see a generation who is trying hard, literally sometimes applying for hundreds of jobs, never getting a reply of any sorts, definitely not getting an interview, not getting a job offer. And they still keep trying. It’s an anxious generation but they’ve got a remarkable degree of resilience, despite everything.”

He explained that a big change he would like to see is for “every young person to have a decent opportunity to learn or earn”.

“Those opportunities frankly aren’t there at the moment,” Milburn said. “Every employer I have a conversation with says, look, we want to employ more young people. We really do. We want to give people a good start in life. So that could be a supported internship, a part time job, a few hours, it can be full time, it could be an apprenticeship.

“There’s no lack of willing on the part of employers… The job of the government is to make it as easy as possible for employers to engage people.”

Big Issue’s full interview with Alan Milburn is available in this week’s magazine.

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