Southern School-to-Work Transition and the Determinants of Becoming Young NEET in China

This study contributes to the scant literature on the individual and structural determinants of being young ‘not in employment, education or training’ (NEET) in China. Drawing from six waves of the Chinese General Social Survey (2010–2021), it finds that (a) China’s NEET rate stands at 16% for the studied period, with significant internal regional variations. (b) The common wisdom that education reduces the incidence of becoming NEET is challenged. Analyses showed that only obtaining a third-level educational degree lowers the likelihood of becoming NEET. (c) The differentiated likelihoods of becoming NEET between women subgroups, for example, married vs unmarried women, rural vs urban women, are more stratified than between different genders or household registrations. (d) Provincial government expenditure on education has a gap-closing effect on the NEET likelihood disparities between different genders and household registrations, whereas larger provincial populations exacerbate gender gaps. Policy implications are discussed.