A More Youth-Centered Policy Development Perspective in NEET Policies

Abstract

Understanding young people’s needs from their own perspective is important for effective policy making. The Youth Guarantee (YG) has been successful in providing training, job search assistance, monitoring, and public work programs for vulnerable young people (NEETs). However, the YG primarily focuses on economic aspects, ignoring multidimensional social problems faced by this vulnerable group. Our chapter focuses on the factors behind the need and on the potential of young people’s contribution to policy-making making it more youth-centered. Recent academic discussions have focused on improving policy development processes beyond the classic or rationalist approach, incorporating cognitive biases, power factors, the multiplicity of actors, and the importance of the environment. To address these challenges, we present the results of a multi-country thought experiment that revealed that the national government is the most important actor in policy development for NEETs, followed by public employment services, local government, civil society organizations, and regional governments. Subsequently, we explore the potential benefits for policy development of new design thinking approaches based on the case example of the Reinforced YG of Estonia. The Estonian approach aims to address the multidimensionality of social problems faced by vulnerable young people and to promote a design-based policy development mindset, creating new avenues for support and services.