National report 2009-2019 - Rural NEET in Croatia
This report presents the situation of rural Youths Neither in Employment, nor in Education or Training (NEET) in Croatia, aged between 15 and 34 years old, in the period from 2009 until 2019. To achieve this goal, the report utilised indicators of youth population, youth em-ployment and unemployment, education and NEETs distribution. The characterisation of all indicators adopted the degree of urbanisation as a central criteria, enabling comparisons between rural areas, towns and suburbs, cities and the whole country. These analyses are further collapsed into age sub-groups and, when possible, in sex groups for greater detail. The statistical procedures adopted across the different selected dimensions involved des-criptive longitudinal analysis, using figures (e.g., line charts) as well as the calculation of abso-lute and relative changes between 2009 and 2013, 2013 and 2019 and 2009 and 2019. These time ranges were chosen to capture the indicators evolution before and after the economic crisis that hit European countries. All data was extracted from Eurostat public datasets. The analyses show that between 2009 and 2019 rural youth population aged 15 to 24 years has been decreasing in Croatia. Youth unemployment was marked by two distinct periods, one from 2009 to 2013 (with higher rates of youth unemployment) and another from 2013 to 2019 (with the decrease in unemployment rates, with lower unemployment rates in ci-ties and higher in towns and suburbs and rural areas). In the field of education, however, there has been a decrease of the Croatian population with lower levels of education and an increase of the proportion of those with higher educational attainment. Finally, the propor-tion of NEETs in Croatia is higher in rural areas compared to cities and towns and suburbs, revealing territorial inequalities in access to employment and education opportunities.