Detailing the activity profile of Brazilian young people who do not study or work: the role of job seeking and household chores

Abstract

One issue in the literature regarding youngsters who neither study nor work (NEET) is the lack of understanding regarding their characteristics and the misdiagnosis of their stereotype. The aim of this study was to find the determinants of certain characteristics of young people in different occupational condition categories -work and study; just work; just study; NEET and seeking work (active NEET) and NEET not seeking work (inactive NEET), and to seek a correlation between the last two categories and the higher incidence of weekly household chores in the home. Thus, with data from the 2015 National Household Sample Survey (Pnad), we used the Logit Multinomial and Counting methods (Poisson regression: Incidence Rate Ratios and Zero Inflated). The results showed that the profile of a young person belonging to the active NEET occupational condition differs considerably from that of those classified as inactive NEETs, mainly regarding gender and housing area. With regard to the other categories, the workload of domestic chores is more frequent in active and inactive NEETs, who are also less likely to be exempt from domestic chores. The distinction between active and inactive NEET was extremely important for the “neither work nor study” category and, based on the results, it is possible to identify traces of generalized inactivity in this population, raising the alarm regarding the need for labor policies aimed at young people in Brazil.

Key words
Young people; Occupational condition; Household chores; Microeconometrics