This report outlines in detail the situation of rural Youths Neither in Employment, nor in Education or Training (NEET) aged between 15 and 34 years old, over the last decade (2009-2019) in Germany. To do this, the report utilised indicators of: youth population; youth employment and unemployment; education; and, NEETs distribution. The characte-risation of all indicators adopted the degree of urbanisation as a central criterion, enabling proportional comparisons between rural areas, towns and suburbs, cities and the whole country. These analyses are further divided into age subgroups and, where possible, into sex groups for greater detail. The statistical procedures adopted across the different selected dimensions involve: des-criptive longitudinal analysis; using graphical displays (e.g., overlay line charts); and, the calculation of proportional absolute and relative changes between 2009 and 2013, 2013 and 2019, and finally 2009 and 2019. These time ranges were chosen to capture the in-dicators evolution before and after the economic crisis which hit European countries. All data was extracted from Eurostat public datasets. The analyses show that the rural youth population aged 15 to 24 years significantly increa-sed between 2009 and 2012 and then decreased slightly until 2019. The youth employment rate in Germany is generally increasing, and is at all times significantly higher in rural areas than in cities, towns and suburbs. The reverse trend applies to youth unemployment, which generally decreased in the observed period and which is at all times lowest in rural areas. A look at educational attainment levels showed a slight decline in rural areas of low educated persons between 2009 and 2019, while the proportion of rural youth with medium and high education slightly increased. At the same time, the proportion of early school leavers in rural areas after an increase until 2011, fell sharply and reached the 2009 level again by 2019. Be-ing 9% in 2019, it remains, at least in rural areas, slightly below the 10% target defined by the Europe 2020 strategy. Finally, the proportion of NEETs in Germany is lower in rural areas in all age classes and as a whole decreased significantly from 2009 to 2019.
Agriculture and the Generation Problem: Rural Youth, Employment and the Future of Farming