ArticleJournal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines2016
Committed to work but vulnerable: self-perceptions and mental health in NEET 18-year olds from a contemporary British cohort.
Article in Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 47 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
47 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 140 citations in OpenAlex.
- Tobacco and cannabis use in the young 'Not in Employment, Education or Training' population: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2026Pooled it
- The mental health of young people who are not in education, employment, or training: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2022Pooled it
- Using virtual reality to investigate psychological processes and mechanisms associated with the onset and maintenance of psychosis: a systematic review.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2016Pooled it
- Substance use and treatment utilization patterns of working-age American men who were not in employment, education, or training (NEET) during the COVID-19 pandemic.Substance abuse treatment, prevention, and policy · 2026Article
- Promoting Well-Being and Workforce Inclusion Through Healthy Leisure: Evidence from a Community-Based Youth Intervention.Journal of prevention (2022) · 2026Article
- Substance use and treatment utilization patterns of working-age American men who were not in employment, education, or training (NEET) during the COVID-19 pandemic.Research square · 2026Article
- Substance use and treatment utilization patterns of working-age American men who were not in employment, education, or training (NEET) during the COVID-19 pandemic.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Loss of Material, Personal, and Social Resources and Their Impact on Mental Health Among Young People Not in Employment, Education, or Training.Journal of adolescence · 2025Article
- Psychological distress and mental health disparities over time between tertiary students and non-student working peers in Australia.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2025Article
- Place Matters: Understanding Geographic Influences on Youth Not in Education, Employment, or Training-A Scoping Review.Journal of adolescence · 2025Article
- Mental health of UK youth following the removal of the Education Maintenance Allowance in England: a natural experiment study using Understanding Society data.BMJ public health · 2025Article
- Nonparticipation in Work and Education in Emerging Adulthood and Depressive Symptoms through Early Midlife.SSM. Mental health · 2024Article
- Risk of not being in employment, education or training (NEET) in late adolescence is signalled by school readiness measures at 4-5 years.BMC public health · 2024Article
- What do justice-involved youth want from integrated youth services? A conjoint analysis.Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry = Journal de l'Academie canadienne de psychiatrie de l'enfant et de l'adolescent · 2024Article
- The socioeconomic consequences of loneliness: Evidence from a nationally representative longitudinal study of young adults.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2024Article
- Article
- Development and Validation of the "Lying Flat" Tendency Scale for the Youth.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Associations over the COVID-19 pandemic period and the mental health and substance use of youth not in employment, education or training in Ontario, Canada: a longitudinal, cohort study.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2023Article
- Visual-stress-related cortical excitability as a prospective marker for symptoms of depression and anxiety in young people.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2023Article
- Values, Health and Well-Being of Young Europeans Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET).International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundLabour market disengagement among youths has lasting negative economic and social consequences, yet is poorly understood. We compared four types of work-related self-perceptions, as well as vulnerability to mental health and substance abuse problems, among youths not in education, employment or training (NEET) and among their peers.
methodsParticipants were from the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) longitudinal study, a nationally representative UK cohort of 2,232 twins born in 1994-1995. We measured commitment to work, job-search effort, professional/technical skills, 'soft' skills (e.g. teamwork, decision-making, communication), optimism about getting ahead, and mental health and substance use disorders at age 18. We also examined childhood mental health.
resultsAt age 18, 11.6% of participants were NEET. NEET participants reported themselves as committed to work and searching for jobs with greater diligence than their non-NEET peers. However, they reported fewer 'soft' skills (B = -0.98, p < .001) and felt less optimistic about their likelihood of getting ahead in life (B = -2.41, p < .001). NEET youths also had higher rates of concurrent mental health and substance abuse problems, but these did not explain the relationship with work-related self-perceptions. Nearly 60% of NEET (vs. 35% of non-NEET) youths had already experienced ≥1 mental health problem in childhood/adolescence. Associations of NEET status with concurrent mental health problems were independent of pre-existing mental health vulnerability.
conclusionsOur findings indicate that while NEET is clearly an economic and mental health issue, it does not appear to be a motivation issue. Alongside skills, work-related self-perceptions and mental health problems may be targets for intervention and service provision among this high-risk population.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.