Feng, Z., Graham, E., Ralston, K., Raab, G. & Dibben, C. (2014) BSPS Annual Conference 2014, Univ of Winchester, 8 - 10 September 2014. [SLS]

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Abstract:

Young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) have drawn consistent attention from policy makers in the last decades. A spell of NEET experiences may impact on socioeconomic and health outcomes in later life. Theoretically there have been debates on the consequences of NEET experiences and so far a number of empirical studies have yielded mixed results. This paper aims to investigate whether experiences of being NEET have long term adverse effects on health outcomes in the Scottish context between 1991 and 2011. We used the Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS), which is a 5.3% representative sample of the Scottish population. We followed young people who were aged 16-19 in 1991 to 2001 and then to 2011 when they were aged 26-29 and 36-39 respectively. We explored whether young people who had NEET experiences in 1991 displayed higher risks of poor physical and mental health ten and twenty years later. The outcomes include the self-reported from the censuses and objective ones from NHS patient records such as hospitalisation and prescription. We used descriptive and modelling approaches in our analysis. Covariates include a number of individual socioeconomic characteristics and local area characteristics in the models. Our research found that the NEET status in 1991 appears to be associated with negative health outcomes in 2001 and 2011. However the association varies with outcomes and by gender.

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Output from project: 2013_005