Announcing the Thesis Proposal Defense of Ms. Jennifer L. Hudson for the degree of Master of the Arts in Political Science
Title: Youth Labor Market Outcomes and the NEET Population in the EU: How do poor labor market opportunities discourage youth?
Date: November 1, 2016
Time: 10 AM
Room: HPH 305G, Political Science Conference Room
This study examines how poor labor market opportunities discourage youth between the ages of 15 and 24 from participating in the labor market in the European Union. A critical portion of inactive NEETs (youth not in employment, education, or training) reports to be discouraged due to a ‘recognized lack of opportunities in the labor market’. Despite indications from descriptive analyses that different forces may be driving the distinct subsets of the NEET population empirical examinations are lacking. The policies prescribed for the group as a whole tend to ignore the special needs of this subset. Beyond the fundamental problem of engaging these individuals in the labor market, there exists a range of implications for not doing so, ranging from social exclusion, to poverty, and even radicalism.
A central goal of this project is to determine what ‘a recognized lack of opportunities’ means. What is known concretely is that fellow youth are increasingly vulnerable to a range of labor market outcomes and conditions, including difficulty transitioning into the labor market (school-to-work transitions), in-work poverty risk, non-standard employment opportunities (involuntary and voluntary), limited ability to transition into secure employment (i.e. upward mobility), lower wage levels, limited job security and support, unemployment, and long-term unemployment. Utilizing aggregated survey data from the EU-LFS (2004-2015), I examine how these labor market outcomes and conditions for youth, representative of the poor labor market opportunities, affect the frequency of discouraged NEETs across 28 EU countries.
Outline of studies:
Major: Political Science
Educational Career:
B.A., 2015, University of Central Florida
Committee in Charge:
Dr. Kerstin Hamann
Dr. Barbara Kinsey
Dr. Michael Mousseau
Dr. Jonathan Powell
Approved for distribution by Dr. Kerstin Hamann, Committee Chair, on October 27, 2016.
The public is welcome to attend.
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