Assessing young adults’ living conditions across Europe using harmonised quantitative indicators: opportunities and risks for policy makers

Abstract

This chapter uses harmonized quantitative regional data on the mediating role of LLL policies in the configuration of individuals living conditions. We focus our attention on four indicators: youth unemployment, tertiary education enrolment, early school leavers and NEET rates. To analyse the determinants of the contextual living conditions we fit persistence models, attempting to explain the status in 2014 with the observed conditions in 2006. We find strong evidence of path dependency. This indicates that the regional contextual living conditions of young adults are overwhelmingly dominated by a combination of the region’s history and developments at the national level. Looking forward, a historically prosperous region in a positive national context is likely to remain so, whilst equally a weak region within a weak national context is likely to remain so. If policy makers are intending to influence the contextual living conditions of young adults, they need to be aware of this inertia. Policies at the national level can be changed and they can be devolved. This could be one way of tackling the inertia, i.e. by providing more policy authority to NUTS-2 regions. Highlighting existing data gaps and improving the availability of territorial information are crucial steps to achieve better targeted policy that isn’t contingent up nation-state-based measures.