About 25,000 young people live “outside society”
Number of dropouts exceeds that of youth unemployed
|
|
|
By Ilkka Malmberg
About 25,000 young people with only a comprehensive school education are out of reach of society. The number is greater than that of young people who are classified as unemployed. If the unskilled jobless are included, the figure reaches 40,000.
Those who have fallen on the wayside do not work or study, but they have also not registered as unemployed. They are not on pension, in institutions, or in the Defence Forces. Society does not actually know where they are and what they live on.
Included in the group are only those who have not continued their education beyond comprehensive school. Also excluded are those who are taking care of a child of their own. Those who have completed upper secondary school, but are hanging out somewhere in the world are also excluded.
Researcher Pekka Myrskylä of Statistics Finland studied registers and statistics from 2003 – 2008 to find out more about a group referred to as “others” – that is, those young people who cannot be classified as students, employed, or unemployed.
The annual income of those classified as outsiders fell to a third of those who are unemployed. In a year the outsiders had an average half a month of work and 1.2 months of unemployment. The remaining 10.3 months of the year they were engaged in “other activities”.
Myrskylä believes that the group is quite heterogeneous, and they can include those for whom being outside society is a temporary and deliberate choice. For instance, some are artists, while others want to live in a “natural economy”, or do volunteer work.
Some may be supported by parents, a partner, or a family community. There are undoubtedly many who do undocumented work, as well as substance abusers and criminals.
Many are homeless single men.
There is a strong hereditary component in being an outsider. The risk of children taken into foster care to fall outside society is very great – up to five times that of others.
Women who fall into the category often care for their children at home. This is why there were more women in the category than men.
Having a foreign language as a mother tongue often portends dropping out of society. One fifth of all male outsiders aged 20 are speakers of a language other than Finnish or Swedish.
There are regional differences. In the Uusimaa region 10.7 per cent of young people are outsiders, while in South Ostrobothnia, where the culture emphasises a sense of community, the figure is just 4.7 per cent.
The group of outsiders is in constant flux, with many people both leaving it while new ones enter the ranks, after dropping out of school, becoming unemployed, and giving up on looking for work.
According to Myrskylä, young people with only a comprehensive school education are sometimes not even accepted onto the unemployment rolls, and are told to go into training. Those who refuse to do so become outsiders.
Some of the outsiders get income supplements, or child allowances, which do not appear on the tax records.
As being an outsider can be just a phase in a young person’s life, Myrskylä followed up on the people he studied for five years to find out what happened to them. After five years, 36 per cent of the group were still either outsiders or unemployed.
With men, the age of 20 was an important watershed. If no opportunities for study or jobs are available by then, the likelihood grows from year to year that the condition may remain permanent.
Education has proven to be the best way to rejoin society. The later studies are put off, the less likely it is that they will ever be entered upon.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 4.6.2011
ILKKA MALMBERG / Helsingin Sanomat
ilkka.malmberg@hs.fi
|
| 7.6.2011 - THIS WEEK |
 About 25,000 young people live “outside society” |
|
