A Typology of Transition Patterns Involving Long-Term NEET Episodes: Accumulation of Risk and Adversity

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The study analyzes an interesting topic: the high number of young people living in NEET status. The originality of the study is the analysis of school-to-work transitions as a longitudinal process. The study reveals that instability and difficult life experiences lived by young people typically extend into early adulthood.  The four factors identified to increase the odds of entering the NEET status (having no educational attainment at age 16, having experienced social interventions in the family while growing up, having been in out-of-home placement between age 0 and 15, and having a low-educated father and mother) reaffirms the need to further study the social and cultural limitations faced by young people who do not have a network of support to succeed. Three of these factors are outside of the educational system.

The paper draws on cumulative inequality theory (CI) to explain how certain factors are related to socioeconomic and cultural limitations, however, a richer explanation of the CI theory and the link to the study findings would be useful. A suggestion for improvement would be to include the corresponding CI references and, include in the limitations section, some suggestions for future studies.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Referee report on “A Typology of Transition Patterns Involving Long-Term NEET Episodes: Accumulation of risk and adversity”

General Comments:  

This is a very interesting paper with important social and policy implications.   The challenge posed by the NEET groups is both pressing and universal.   The authors can be grateful that they have access to Danish data, which (along with Germany and other Scandinavian countries) are extremely rich.   I am quite receptive to the objectives of this paper.  Despite the fact that the authors write very well in English, it does need to be copy-edited.   Despite that correctable flaw, the paper is generally well-written, well-presented, coherent, and easy to follow.  

There are a few grammatical errors.   There are some sentences that are too long, and there are many punctuation errors.  I believe that the methodology is sound, although I am not familiar with the quantitative techniques that are typically applied in sociology.   I do know about the logistic regression equation, and I have carried out typology analyses in my research.    One real advantage, in my view, of their methodology is their sample selection process.   By selecting individuals at such a young age and at an early stage of the education process, the initial conditions problem that often plagues analysis of transitions data is obviated.  The same comment applies to much of the terminology.   In my discipline of public policy in economics, we have alternative terms for some of the terms that are used in this paper.   

Overall, this constitutes a good effort in my view.

More Specific Comments:

In order to provide international context, compare the NEET incidence in Denmark with that of other nations.  I know that in the UK, although the measured rate of unemployment is low, the NEET incidence is high.  The survey of the literature should include more related studies from other countries.  

1.       I find the juxtaposition of NEET status with self-reported mental health to be interesting, important, and poignant.   I suffered from mental health issues when I was that age. 

2.       I have never heard of the Dynamic Hamming Matching technique on which the typology analysis is based.   The authors might want to provide some short exposition of this approach.

3.       The phenomenon that they label as “CI Theory” we might label ‘scarring’ or ‘state dependence’ that is conditioned on prior conditions or events.  In this case it amounts to a pattern of persistence. 

4.       The documentation of data and methods is pretty good, with one exception.   What do the authors mean by “costs” in this context?   Who incurs these costs?  Is it the subjects?  I think that the authors might be referring to some metric for dissimilarity employed by the quantitative procedure.   In economic research costs mean something very different.   The authors should also clarify what is meant by a cluster analysis.   In economics we call them groups, categories, or ‘types’ for a typology analysis. 

5.       Table 1 must be described before the authors set out the five different clusters.   The titles are pretty informative.  

6.       In the summary of section 3.1, the authors should use the term heterogeneity and perhaps add a few more enriching sentences here.

7.       I like the analysis contained in part 3, although it could be made more empirically rigorous.   This involves tracking the cohort forwards, which is a very common exercise in economics.   The conclusion is qualitatively valid.  

8.        In regard to the limitations, the authors are correct that their inability to distinguish between the states of employment and self-support is a drawback.  Is self-employment or work in the informal sector a possibility?  Is income receipt observed?   What about receipt of some form of social insurance benefits?  Such data would be quite useful.  While the data are of high quality, it does seem as though there are reporting issues.  

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf