Recent research has highlighted the critical problem of high rates of “disconnected youth”—youth and young adults who are neither employed nor in school. Practitioners, scholars, policymakers, and a range of stakeholders express mounting concern that disconnected youth are a societal burden that costs countries trillions of dollars. This phenomenon could threaten social cohesion and social development, in addition to costing large amounts of money in the forms of foregone labor productivity and tax revenues and increased incarceration and social services uptake rates. Whereas other studies explore disconnection among a cross‐sectional sample of U.S. young adults, we set out to document the longitudinal education and employment pathways of a nationally representative cohort of U.S. millennial young adults from approximately age 16 to age 26. Our results highlight that both socioeconomic status (SES) and high school academic abilities are associated with disconnection from society at ages 18, 20, and 26. However, these associations diminish over time, and by age 26 SES is a weaker predictor of disconnection than having been on a college preparatory track (e.g., taking practice college entrance examinations) or having special educational needs in high school. At the same time, high school literacy and mathematics skills and grades are unrelated to disconnection at age 26. Prior disconnection remains one of the strongest predictors of disconnection at ages 20 and 26, highlighting the problem of repeated disconnection experienced by a small group of youth and young adults (only 0.6% of our full sample, or 11.1% of high school leavers). Finally, the odds of dropping out of the labor force—not seeking employment—are most strongly explained by gender and having dependent children, and to a lesser extent by race and high school region and urbanicity. Recommendations for supporting those most at risk of disconnection are discussed in relation to our findings.
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Since its 1947 founding, ETS has conducted and disseminated scientific research to support its products and services, and to advance the measurement and education fields. In keeping with these goals, ETS is committed to making its research freely available to the professional community and to the general public. Published accounts of ETS research, including papers in the ETS Research Report series, undergo a formal peer-review process by ETS staff to ensure that they meet established scientific and professional standards. All such ETS-conducted peer reviews are in addition to any reviews that outside organizations may provide as part of their own publication processes. Peer review notwithstanding, the positions expressed in the ETS Research Report series and other published accounts of ETS research are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Officers and Trustees of Educational Testing Service.
In this study, we investigated factors predictive of disconnection, or not being in education, employment, or training (NEET), among young adults with at least a 2‐year college degree. We also explored the extent to which disconnection influences civic participation and well‐being among NEETs with and without college degrees. The authors used 2012 and 2015 Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) data from the Survey of Adult Skills in the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) for 29 countries, including the United States, along with US 2012 data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002), collected by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Results highlight that college‐educated individuals whose parents have low levels of educational attainment actually have a higher likelihood of becoming NEET relative to college‐educated individuals whose parents are more highly educated. Study findings also emphasize the influence of economic and geographic differences (country‐level for OECD and county‐level for United States) on NEET rates, in addition to the extent to which mothers have a higher likelihood and fathers have a lower likelihood of being NEET relative to their childless peers and the influence of country‐level family leave policies on the odds of being NEET across the OECD. College field of study also emerges as an important influence on disconnection across the 29 OECD countries in the study, but not in the United States separately. Finally, comparing results for college‐educated NEETs and NEETs without degrees, we found that higher education appears to reduce the likelihood of community disengagement and reports of poor health among NEETs across the OECD countries. However, this is not the case within the United States where NEETs are less likely to be engaged in their communities and more likely to describe themselves as in poor health regardless of their educational attainment.
Since its 1947 founding, ETS has conducted and disseminated scientific research to support its products and services, and to advance the measurement and education fields. In keeping with these goals, ETS is committed to making its research freely available to the professional community and to the general public. Published accounts of ETS research, including papers in the ETS Research Report series, undergo a formal peer-review process by ETS staff to ensure that they meet established scientific and professional standards. All such ETS-conducted peer reviews are in addition to any reviews that outside organizations may provide as part of their own publication processes. Peer review notwithstanding, the positions expressed in the ETS Research Report series and other published accounts of ETS research are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Officers and Trustees of Educational Testing Service.
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