National report 2009-2019 - Rural NEET in Italy

This document describes the Italian situation of young people aged between 15 and 34 years who do not work, do not study and are not in training (NEET), from 2009 to 2019. The report analyses the following indicators of the youth population: employment; unem- ployment; education; and, distribution of NEETs. The criteria adopted to analyse data are mainly the degree of urbanisation, the age group and, where possible, gender. The statistical procedure adopted for the different dimensions selected is descriptive lon- gitudinal analysis and calculation of absolute and relative proportional changes between 2009 and 2013, 2013 and 2019 and between 2009 and 2019. These time intervals have been chosen to capture the evolution of the indicators before and after the economic cri- sis that hit European countries. All data has been extracted from Eurostat public data sets. The data analysed shows how the Italian population decreased slightly between 2009 and 2019. However, what clearly changed is the distribution: increased in rural areas and decreased in cities. Youth unemployment grew strongly from 2009 to 2014, until finally decreasing from 2014 to 2019. Between 2009 and 2019, the Italian population aged from 15 to 24 years old has become more educated. The number of young people who drop out of school early decreased sharply, although rural areas remain the ones with the highest rates thereof. Finally, the NEET rate is one of the highest in the EU and has increased overall from 2009 to 2019. The peak was reached in 2014 and then the share decreased until 2019. Rural areas have the highest rate, although with a very small difference compared to the rate of cities and the national average.