ABSTRACT
This chapter of the book has to do with how the NEETs themselves interpret their social situation and social relations in general, what are their lived experiences as regards labour markets and “inactivity”, how they cope in their everyday lives and what are their prospects and plans for the future. Based mainly on 44 in-depth interviews with women and migrant / asylum seeker / refugee NEETs in all target areas of the four countries and on participant observation and interviews with key persons in various employment agencies and policymakers, qualitative analysis indicates how individual and collective human agency – in this case NEETs’ human agency – interacts with structural obstacles or enablements and how certain outcomes are produced or reproduced. In this chapter, qualitative findings in the target areas are thoroughly linked with quantitative ones and phenomena such as gender discrimination and racism are discussed in relation to respondents’ labour market and employment experiences. Processes of social exclusion, labour precariousness and socio-spatial injustice and inequality are theorised through the narratives and life stories of NEETs themselves.
