Neither-Nor: generation or situation?
Neither-Nor: generation or situation of 700,000 “Convinced Inactive” Youngsters
And unpublished data in the Youth Report 2008, from the department of social, economic, actuarial and demographic studies at La Sapienza university in Rome, appear to confirm it. Further corroboration comes from cross-referencing the figures with data from the ISTAT national statistics institute’s study Work Force 2008. In the 15-19 age group, there are 270,000 young people (9%) who do not study and do not work. Most are unable to find a job but 50,000 say they are unemployed by choice and 11,000 say they want nothing to do with work or study (“I’m not interested”, “I don’t need to”).
Forget the X and Y Generations. As the country faces the worst recession since the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War, young people are being hit especially hard. No other country in Europe has as many young people out of work: almost 37 per cent of people under 25 and a quarter of those under 30. The Spanish media have already created a name for this group: “generación ni-ni”, which literally means “the neither-nor generation”. The term is used to describe young people who are neither studying nor working and who don’t have anything in their lives to get excited about. A recent survey shows that 54 per cent of Spaniards aged between 18 and 34 view themselves as “neither-nors”.
source: http://www.mothertongue.com/wordpress/?p=439
