Doesn't Get Better With Age: Predicting Millennials' Disconnection

Abstract

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.

College Educated Yet Disconnected: Exploring Disconnection From Education and Employment in OECD Countries, With a Comparative Focus on the U.S.

“…A range of individual characteristics also play a clear role in the likelihood of becoming NEET. We know that disabled individuals, those in poor health or with health concerns, and those with special educational needs more often end up NEET (Belfield et al, 2012; Millett & Kevelson, 2018). In fact, NEETs are over five times more likely to complain of poor health than their non‐NEET peers and more than twice as likely to report limitations on their daily activity due to their health (OECD, 2016a).…”

“…Having children is a clear factor as well, as young mothers are more often disconnected than young women without children, across the OECD and within the United States specifically (Eurofound, 2016; Millett & Kevelson, 2018). Young mothers are also more often NEET than young fathers.…”

“…An estimate using 2015 data from the American Community Survey pegged it at 12% of 16‐ to 24‐year‐olds or nearly 5 million US youth and young adults (Burd‐Sharps & Lewis, 2017). Although most reports of the US disconnection rate group 16‐ to 24‐year‐olds together, studies have shown that rates are higher among those in their twenties than those in their teens (Ross & Svajlenka, 2016) and that rates increase with age (Millett & Kevelson, 2018). The same trend has been documented across OECD nations for NEETs overall and for female NEETs in particular (OECD, 2016a, 2018a).…”

“…In fact, recent research conducted in the European Union has found that children of unemployed parents are more likely to experience unemployment and less likely to attend college; these effects are theorized to be due to the stress of parental unemployment, the parental unemployment's influence on children's expectations for themselves and understanding of gender roles, diminished access to parental job networks, and children's declining optimism about their academic prospects (Berloffa et al, 2019; Lindemann & Gangl, 2019). Relatedly, research from the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and the OECD has shown that family background factors, including low parental income and parental divorce, may also increase the likelihood of being NEET (Carcillo et al, 2015, 2016; Crawford et al, 2016; Eurofound, 2012; Millett & Kevelson, 2018). Parental and childhood background are not the only factors that influence NEET status, however.…”

“…Therefore, our literature review is largely limited to studies of the broader population of NEETs ages 15–29 in the OECD and ages 16–24 in the United States as the most relevant literature supporting our study. There is evidence that disconnection rates are higher at the upper end of these age ranges, both for the OECD overall and for the United States specifically (Millett & Kevelson, 2018; OECD, 2018b; Ross & Svajlenka, 2016); however, prior literature on NEETs not only does not focus explicitly on college‐educated NEETs, but it also does not focus on NEETs old enough to have earned a 2‐year college degree.…”