They've dropped out of school and are out of the workforce. Statistics call them NEETs, an acronym for young people between the ages of 15 and 34 with no resume or prospects. One in five young people in Sardinia lives like this. Two in ten. Twenty in a hundred. That's 20.2%.

The research

The plight of the invisible has just been revisited by Gi Group, together with the Toniolo Institute's Youth Observatory and the ZeroNeet Foundations of Cariplo and Compagnia di San Paolo. Italy, increasingly a country for old people, cannot afford to have so many young people out of school and out of the world of paychecks. The Northern regions, as always when it comes to guaranteed opportunities, are faring significantly better than the South. But among the EU's Twenty-seven member states, the Italian figures are the worst: our rate of NEETs is 16, five points lower than the European average. Sardinia is among the regions suffering the most from NEETs: its 20.2% rate is the fifth highest, tied with Basilicata. Sicily and Calabria are tied at 30.1; Campania follows at 29; and Puglia is at 25.9. Trentino-Alto Adige is already below the 9% NEET rate, the threshold set by Brussels for 2030. The highest NEET rate is recorded in the 25-29 age group: 29.1. It drops to 26.6 for those aged 30 to 34. The only positive note is the 6.7% NEET rate among 15-19 year-olds (although in the rest of Italy it hovers around 4%), but among 20-24 year-olds it rises to 17.1.

Curriculum and family

To understand the root of young people's invisibility, tables showing the distribution of educational qualifications are helpful. The resulting dynamic is well-known: education and employment are closely linked to social status. Low educational attainment, even among families of origin, is a drag: the NEET rate is 32.3% when the mother hasn't completed more than elementary school. If she has completed middle school, the rate rises to 24%, then drops to 13.4% for mothers with high school diplomas. The NEETs' educational qualifications also reveal other nuances, all pointing to the inability of policymakers to create real job opportunities for young people. In Sardinia, however, not even a degree seems to save them from invisibility: NEETs with high qualifications still represent 13.5%, well above the 5.7% in Veneto, the highest rate in the country. So much so that emigration continues to represent the only alternative to a life without a future. The data on high school graduates reinforces the island's hunger for paychecks: disappointment at the uselessness of a piece of paper pushes younger generations neither to study nor seek employment. With this level of education, the NEET rate rises to 23.1%. It drops to 19.4 with a middle school diploma.

The contrast

As of December 31, 2024, Sardinian NEETs numbered 58,000. This is down from 66,000 in 2023. Previously, they were even higher: 29.1% in 2018. And then, going forward: 28.2% in 2019; 27.5% in 2020; 25.5% in 2021; 23.8% in 2022; 22.8% in 2023, reaching 20.2% in 2024. But there's no reason to celebrate. Because it's precisely young people who are swelling the ranks of the inactive, or those who have stopped looking for work. Paradoxically, in Sardinia, employment rose to 58.6% in October, up 1.5% compared to the same period last year—a breath of fresh air for those over 50 but not for those under 35. In this age group, where the inactivity rate exceeds 33%, the employment rate stands at 27.8%.

The sociologist

The professor is cautious when discussing young people out of school and the job market. "In Sardinia," says Marco Pitzalis, director of the Department of Political and Social Sciences, "the search for employment is more difficult than in other regions, and therefore the waiting period between completing studies and starting a formal, stable job is on average longer. But this doesn't mean that young people aren't doing anything. The category of NEETs is an invention that I strongly criticize and that should be discussed." The reason is primarily methodological: "In Italy, the classification only considers those enrolled in formal training programs, while anyone who doesn't participate in such experiences is excluded. Or women and men involved in caring for family members or the most vulnerable, or even those who choose to take a gap year. All these people are automatically labeled as do-nothings, but that's not the case. It's a mistaken and hyper-performancealist view of reality, which doesn't take into account its complexity."

Alessandra Carta

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