First, a brief note on language: nobody ever calls themselves a “Neet”. In May, Milburn published his interim report, which found that the UK has the second-highest rate of Neets in Europe, after Romania. An accompanying paper, Inside the Mind of a Young Neet, featured snippets from conversations with more than 400 young people who were out of work and education. Its authors heard from a 22-year-old who was competing in archery contests, a gardening fanatic who had taught themselves how to make raised beds, and an aspiring linguist who could read Latin and crochet flower baskets. These are skilled young people with huge potential and meaningful lives. The problem lies in a system that is failing them.
Broadly, there are two explanations for why so many young people today aren’t in work or education. The first is the labour market. Businesses have argued that rising national insurance contributions are deterring firms from hiring young workers, while others have speculated that AI is destroying entry-level jobs. The second, more troubling explanation, is the striking number of young people who are unwell or have poor mental health.
The proportion of 18 to 24-year-olds with a long-term, limiting health condition has increased by 42% since 2019, while the number of 20 to 24-year-olds prescribed antidepressants increased by almost a third between 2015 and 2021. Britain now has the highest rate of anxiety and depressive disorders among 15 to 24-year-olds in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. “We often talk about the relationship between the labour market and poor health as being ‘bi-directional’,” Mon-Williams explains. People who are out of work are more likely to feel anxious or depressed, he says, while past experiences of anxiety or depression can become a barrier to entering the workforce. “Both come into play, which is why it’s so complex.”
What emerges from these figures is a picture of generational misery. As Mon-Williams puts it: “I really think we need to take a step back, take a good hard look at ourselves as a country, and ask : what on earth have we allowed to happen?”
Why are young people so unhappy?
There’s a tendency (particularly among ageing right-wing commentators who depend on young people paying taxes that fund the NHS and state pensions) to blame these rates of ill-health on a culture of over-diagnosis among self-indulgent “snowflakes”. The Born in Bradford study refutes this myth. Mon-Williams and other researchers have access to the health records of 13,500 young people born in 2007, from pregnancy through to the present day, as well as data about their mental health. Many participants suffering from mental ill health struggle to get any support. “The evidence shows that there’s a genuine mental health epidemic among that generation,” he says. “These are warning signs. Pity the country that doesn’t take them seriously.”
Nor are Neets work-shy, or choosing to live off benefits rather than find a job. Most want to be in work or education. About 314,000 of them are not receiving any benefits at all, and have effectively disappeared from the system. As Milburn put it in his interim report, caricatures of a generation uninterested in employment or using mental health as an excuse “are myths. Sometimes cruel ones.”
Researchers have identified multiple reasons for growing rates of mental ill-health among young people, including financial precarity, housing insecurity, drastic cuts to youth clubs and youth workers, rising social media use and broken sleep (while compiling his interim report, a group of teenagers told Milburn they went to bed between midnight and three each night because they were scrolling on their phones).
The disciplinary, top-button-obsessed culture of many academy schools can also contribute to these problems by excluding children with complex needs or neurodivergence, making it more likely they become a Neet later. “When you exclude a child, you’re consigning them to the probability of having a rubbish life,” Mon-Williams tells me.
Has the pandemic made this worse?
The pandemic aggravated an ongoing mental health crisis, cutting many young people off from school and severing their friendships and social bonds. In his Born in Bradford data, Mon-Williams found a striking increase in the number of children who were absent from school after Covid. “Pre-pandemic, in Bradford, we had 3,000 children who were persistently absent,” he says. “Post-pandemic, that went up to 30,000. That’s a hugely worrying statistic.”
Many young people missed out on opportunities to learn both academically and socially. “I lost the social aspect of connecting with people … maintaining eye contact, hand gestures and all sorts,” one young person told the Inside the Mind of a Neet researchers. For some, patterns cultivated in lockdown – long nights spent online, disrupted sleep patterns, minimal social contact and eroded routines – morphed into a semi-permanent stasis.
What needs to change?
Milburn’s interim findings acknowledges that there needs to be a “system reset”. There’s also been a lot of chatter in Westminster about “hard hats” and vocational training, which is an improvement on the status quo (Britain has far fewer young people on vocational courses than Germany or the Netherlands).
Mon-Williams argues that we should be thinking about preventing someone from becoming a Neet right from the start of their life. That would mean ensuring that pregnant mothers have enough support, that families can access Sure-Start centres, that young people arrive at school ready to learn, and that teenagers leave with a clear plan, a sense of confidence and direction, and some work experience on their CV. “I’m glad that we’re starting to wake up,” he said. “It breaks my heart, this stuff. But as a society, we could change it.”
Researchers warn that exclusion, poor mental health and a lack of support can leave young people increasingly disconnected from education and work. Photograph: Marcin Rogozinski/Alamy
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