The Analysis of Social- and Labor Market Policies’ Impact on NEETs in China

Abstract: This thesis addresses the impact of social- and labor market policies on youth unemployment in China; particularly on NEETs. The acronym NEET stands for the youths aged 15-34 that are “Not in Education, Employment or Training”. This group of individuals is experiencing a bad time with less job opportunities and more competitive labor market which are led by the recession. NEETs and their families are suffering from various consequences of unemployment. Meanwhile, the situation of NEETs will also lead to both short-term and long-term loss for the communities and the state. This thesis will further analyze how different social- and labor market policies’ affect NEETs in China. Three policies: the higher education enrolment expansion, the family planning policy and job training have been chosen to explore how these social- and labor market policies affect NEETs in China since all of them have influence in unemployed youths. The study is based on qualitative research methods, such as semi-structured interviews, as well as statistical data, qualitative content analysis, and case study method. The enrolment expansion and family planning policy have been adversely affecting on NEETs situation even though it is unintended consequence of policy implementation. However job training as the main intervention of solving this problem is not effectively working on this group of youth.