Youth Not in Education, Employment and Training (NEET) in Sri Lanka

This study attempts to investigate the Youth Not in Education, Employment and Training (NEET) in Sri Lanka. The objectives of this study include identifying the share of youth NEET in Sri Lanka as a percentage of population with regards to national, sectoral, gender, education, ethnicity and marital status, and to identify the determinants of those who are NEET. This study is based on cross-sectional data obtained from Sri Lanka Labour Force Survey (SLFS) 2015. The methodology adopted for the study consists of two major components. First component attempts to generate youth NEET estimates for Sri Lanka using descriptive statistics tools. The second component of the methodology includes a logistic regression analysis to identify the determinants of youth NEET. The study found that Sri Lanka has a significantly high youth NEET rate of 25.8 percent in 2015, which is unsatisfactory to the Sri Lankan labour market. This raises the labour market vulnerability with regards to youth population of Sri Lanka. The research also found the significant NEET disparities among youths by sector, gender, age, education, ethnicity and marital status. Moreover, the logistic regression analysis identified age, gender, education, residential sector and marital status as the significant determinants of youth NEET in Sri Lanka.