Italian NEETs in 2005–2016: have the Recent Labour Market Reforms Produced Any Effect?

Using an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model with a seasonal frequency, this study attempts to analyse the changes occurred in the share of Italian NEETs (young people Not in Employment, Education and Training), from 2005 to 2016. The recent economic crisis increased the share of NEETs in many European countries. This work aims at analysing the main determinants of the NEET phenomenon in Italy, starting from the wider European framework. Furthermore, the Chow test for the structural breaks detection allows verifying if a structural break occurred in the share of Italian NEETs over time, as a consequence of the introduction of this Youth Guarantee Fund and of the overcoming of the deepest phase of the crisis. The under-representation of women in the labour market, and the North-South dualism, required different analyses. The results confirm that a significant structural break happened in the levels of NEETs almost everywhere, in 2014. It was directly ascribable to the trend observed in the share of NEETs in the South of Italy, especially for women, in contrast with the Centre and North-east, where it refers in particular to men