Setting Sails for Your Harbor: Navigating Beyond NEET Status Through Self-Efficacy and Career Decidedness.

Abstract

Introduction: A successful transition from school to further employment, education, or training is central to avoiding early unemployment with its dire consequences for young people and society. Yet, some youths struggle with this transition and fall into a NEET-status, "not in employment, education, or training." By studying the temporal dynamics of such NEETs' career related self-efficacy and career decidedness across four waves, the current study aims to gain an understanding of how such young people may transition back out of NEET status.

Methods: For this purpose, the current study followed N = 264 NEETs in Germany (aged 15-25; 42.6% female, mean age 18.41 years) up to four measurement points between 2014 and 2016 in a cross-lagged panel design to trace their career-related self-efficacy and career decidedness as predictors of their eventual ability to leave the NEET status.

Results: Results indicate that while self-efficacy and career decidedness covaried when studied crossectionally, contrary to conceptual predictions, neither self-efficacy nor career decidedness impacted each other across time. Further, the more decided NEETs felt towards the end of the study's period, the higher their chance of exiting the NEET status by finding employment, returning to school for a degree, or starting an apprenticeship or training.

Conclusion: This study sheds light on the interplay between self-efficacy and career decidedness over multiple measurement points and how youths with otherwise bleak outlooks decide on their future career and possibly enter more favorable career trajectories. Practical implications include advice for programs targeting younger people.