This thesis draws on the voices of the young people who will be affected by the government’s proposal to increase the age of participation in education and training to 18 by 2015, voices which are otherwise overlooked in policy formulation and much research. The young people most affected are those who currently do not participate in education or training after the age of 16. The thesis takes a phenomenological approach, building understanding from the young people’s perspectives of their life-worlds and their reasons for not participating and exploring their response to their particular circumstances as perceived by them. The thesis explores their understanding through focus groups held in one local authority in South East England, comprising urban and rural settings. The thesis highlights factors that impede young people’s participation from their own perspectives, which fall into three categories: physical factors; social factors; and emotional factors. Nationally, the government has confirmed its commitment to raising the participation age by 2015, yet many of the government’s policies are exacerbating the challenges that young people face. This study concludes that the barriers highlighted by young people in relation to physical factors; social factors; and emotional factors are neglected in the current policy drive to full participation to age 18 and this needs urgent attention if the policy is to succeed. The thesis proposes a model which is offered for future policy and practice development to give greater weight to the perspectives of young people in relation to participation as expressed in this research. There is a risk if their concerns are not addressed that young people who have experienced a failure by the system and associated damaged self esteem, are now further pathologised, and potentially criminalised, for failing to fulfil their duty to participate. Yet, a more holistic approach that addresses the broader issues highlighted by this research, could realise pathways into further education and training that redress some of the previous negative experience and restore their confidence for the future.

Sammanfattning Syftet var att undersöka ungdomars upplevelse av arbetslöshet och hälsa. Det gjordes genom en enkätundersökning som innehöll kvantitativa frågor och kvalitativa frågor. Den besvarades av 41 arbetslösa ungdomar i åldern 17-24 år. Resultatet visar att ett större antal unga anser sig ha bra hälsa och att det var vanligast med ett psykisk välbefinnande. Häften av ungdomarna kände sig stressade i viss mån. En större andel kvinnor än män hade självmordstankar. Det var endast kvinnor som hade gjort självmordsförsök. Arbetslösa ungdomar upplevde arbetslösheten som negativ, trots det såg de positivt eller någorlunda dvs. varken positivt eller negativt på framtiden. Många upplevde goda möjligheter att studera vidare men chanserna att få ett arbete upplevdes av flertalet vara bra eller någorlunda. Majoriteten av de unga försöker vara aktiva under tiden de är arbetslösa. De upplever arbetslösheten som en meningslös tid, då deras hälsa knappast förbättras, snarare försämras. De får anstränga sig för att må bra och inte bli nedstämda. Slutsatsen är att forskning om ungdomsarbetslöshet och hälsa är särskilt viktig eftersom tidigare forskning visat att ungdomars hälsa påverkas mer än vuxnas hälsa av arbetslöshet. / The objective was to explore young people's experience of unemployment and health. It was made by using a mixed approach. Data was collected by a survey which included quantitative and qualitative questions. It was answered by 41 unemployed young people aged 17-24 years. The results from the survey showed that a greater number of young people have good health, and that it was common with a mental well-being. Half of the participants felt stressed. A larger proportion of women had suicidal thoughts compared to men. It was only women who had attempted suicide. Unemployed young people experienced unemployment as negative, although they had a positive view on the future. Many responds perceived good opportunities to further education, but the likelihoods of getting a work was perceived by the majority as good or neither good or bad. The majority of young people are trying to be active during their unemployment. They experience unemployment as a meaningless time when theirs health status doesn’t improves, rather get worse. Several have to make an effort to feel good and not to be depressed. The conclusion is that research on youth unemployment is particularly important because previous research shows that young people and their health, affects more than unemployed adults.

This essay intervenes in the politics of urban segregation in Stockholm. The main aim of the essay is to analyze and describe how advanced marginality and territorial stigmatization are expressed in the lived experiences of four unemployed youths, that have participated in a labor market training program located in the “social vulnerable” area Rågsved. With a theoretical framework based in Henri Lefebvre’s production of social space the empirical findings are interpreted in regard to how the youths produce social space in dialectical interplay with urban politics, advanced marginality, territorial stigmatization, and their local neighborhood. The empirical material in the study was collected through qualitative interviews with the youths. The method of interviewing, analyzing, and presenting the result is grounded in a phenomenological approach. The historical background for the essay is the politics of urban segregation that has emerged in the metropolitan areas of Sweden. The post-industrial society and advanced sectors in the economy are transforming the labor market, city landscape, and the requirements on workers. This deep transformation process has resulted in social exclusion and inequalities between different groups in the urban city. Unemployment and poverty has been concentrated to the urban periphery of the metropolitan city. The urban periphery is marginalized areas with high concentration of immigrant residents with post-colonial status. The Swedish Metropolitan Committee committed a proposal 1998 for a new urban politics in the beginning of the millennium, which main purpose was to intervene in the ongoing process of ethnic and socioeconomic segregation in the urban landscape. This political-institutional background, within the context of post-industrial society and neoliberal politics, situates the historical framework for the present study. The result in the study points out that the youths are in an insecure position in the contemporary labor market, and constantly reflect their ways of living through the dominated norms of active labor market policies. The youths participation in the labor market training program Rågsved Community Center are described as a positive experience, and they describe how they are fully recognized as individual subjects of the employees. Within the geography of urban segregation, the youths are constantly in a process of mental negotiating about how to determine the space of Rågsved. The space of the “social vulnerable” suburb Rågsved is produced by the youths in the conflict of territorial stigmatization and their feelings of belonging.  The main result from the study is that the youths lived experiences of participation in Rågsved Community Center reflects a political need for something different. They discredit the way that Arbetsförmedlingen approach them as unemployed and lack confidence in their methods. In the social space of Rågsved Community Center the youths are recognized as individuals and are also taking initiative to help their friends in Rågsved to find a way out of unemployment. These spatial practices in Rågsved produce a social space and constitute a local institution that could be an embryo for collective representation and organization in relation to urban segregation and youth unemployment in the urban periphery.

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This thesis is concerned with the experiences of an under-researched group of long-term unemployed young adults aged 18 – 24 years old. The research was undertaken in the South West of England between July 2010 and January 2013; a period of economic uncertainty and social instability in the UK. The initial sample comprised nineteen young adults, chosen to represent the diversity of those who were unemployed at that time. The longitudinal approach allowed for an exploration of their changing attitudes and self-understandings over a two year period. Whilst the interviewees shared much in common with their younger counterparts whose experiences have been the focus of previous research, there were also some significant differences. Not only did their priorities differ as they approached their mid-twenties, but they also held the capacity to project themselves further into the future; contemplating what life might be like in five years’ time. The findings revealed a tension between culturally embedded ideas that continue to support the primacy of paid work, and the ways in which some of the young adults were able to (re)define their lives. The importance of experiences outside of paid employment emerged as significant, suggesting the need for a broader understanding of what constitutes ‘work’. Whilst some of the young adults seemed to have adopted late-modern perspectives, engaged in a form of reflexive life management, others appeared to be struggling to reconcile the opportunities available with their expectations. In part, some of the differences between the participants were linked to gendered subjectivities; with the young men finding it more challenging to make sense of their lives beyond the world of paid work. However, the young adults’ experiences could not be divided by gender alone, nor could gender be disembedded from the broader context of their lives: their family backgrounds; their historical contexts; their educations; the discourses that influence their lives; their location. These structural factors were continuously at play in the lives of the participants, but did not preclude the possibility of them exercising their agentic abilities. When considering the findings as a whole it was the young adults’ ability to experience a sense of agency, combined with a feeling of belonging, which emerged as significant.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (School of Business and Finance) / Entrepreneurial firms, entrepreneurial capital, entrepreneurial ecosystem and entrepreneurial economy are a few terminologies that have emerged since the resurgence of entrepreneurship, arising from the 1990's entrepreneurial revolution in the United States of America. Entrepreneurship education, a paradigm shift from the conventional, has been identifies as being critical to fostering entrepreneurship, building entrepreneurial capital, growing entrepreneurial economy and ultimately delivering sustainable economic growth and developmend for any nation - emerging or developed. From America to Africa, entrepreneurship modules with varies objectives and designs have multiplied in the last decade.

Drawing on information from the Encuesta de la Transición de la Escuela al Trabajo 2012 (Survey on the Transition from School to Work), this study analyzes the characteristics of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEETs). We find that, overall, 17.94% of Peruvian urban youth between 15 and 29 years of age are NEETs. Of these, around three quar- ters (74.09%) are females, which points toward the presence of factors associated with gender, such as fertility, the role within the household economy, or educational reasons, such as the explanatory variables in the previous result.Accordingly, the likelihood of being a NEET increases for females if there are children in the house- hold and if the individual has a partner, while the reverse is true in the case of males. Moreover, the likelihood of belonging to the NEET group increases when there are young men in the household; decreases when they are heads of household; if there is production in the household; or if the part- ner is engaged in domestic work. As regards individual decisions, young people’s life goals affect the likelihood of being a NEET. Moreover, the higher the level of education, the lower the likelihood of being a NEET due to the greater opportunity cost associated with better earning prospects. / Utilizando la información de la Encuesta de la Transición de la Escuela al Trabajo 2012, este estudio analiza las características de los jóvenes que no estudian, no trabajan ni se encuentran en entrenamiento laboral (NEET por sus siglas en inglés). Encontramos que, en general, el 17,94% de los jóvenes urbanos peruanos entre 15 y 29 años son NEET. De estos, casi tres cuartas partes son mujeres (74,09%), lo que sugiere la existencia de factores asociados al género, tales la como fertilidad, el rol dentro de la economía del hogar, o razones educativas, como las variables explicativas del anterior resultado.En este sentido, la probabilidad de ser NEET aumenta para las mujeres si es que hay hijos en el hogar y si se tiene pareja, teniendo el efecto opuesto en el caso de los varones. Asimismo, la pro- babilidad de pertenecer al grupo NEET aumenta si hay jóvenes varones en el hogar; disminuye si es que estos son jefes de hogar, si hay producción en el hogar o si la pareja se dedica a actividades domésticas. Por el lado de las decisiones individuales, las metas en la vida de los jóvenes afectan la probabilidad de ser NEET. Igualmente, a mayor nivel educativo, menor probabilidad de NEET por el mayor costo de oportunidad asociado al mayor posible ingreso laboral.

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / The Republic of South Africa is faced with an extremely problematic high rate of poverty, shortages of skills and youth unemployment. This phenomenon is amongst blacks (predominantly African and coloured). This thesis therefore, argues that job creation is a very important measure to address youth unemployment and related socio-economic problems though; the majority of youth in South Africa have been classified as unskilled, uneducated and unemployable. The implementation of skills development programmes remains a huge problem. It has been also assumed that youth development programme have been inaccurately interpreted. TheYouth development is an evolutionary development in which all young people are engaged in attempting to build skills, and competencies, to meet their social needs and for the development of the community (Pittman 1993: 3). It is in this regard that the researcher selected Belhar in the Western Cape as a setting to investigate the problematic mentioned above. Although the 2011 census report stated that people living in the area of Belhar have access to electricity, refuse removal, water and sanitation, up to now poverty and youth unemployment remain alarming in this community. The study indicates that there is a youth development policy existing on paper at all levels of South African governments however its implementation remains a major problem. The research is exploratory in nature and uses qualitative techniques of inquiry. The researcher also uses secondary data such as conference papers and the City of Cape Town’s budget documents as a form of gathering information for analysis. The study explores the present youth programme and local government’s capacity in the surrounding community of Belhar. The data collected during this study through interviews, reveals that the youth programme is in existence in Belhar, however there is incapacity and lack of cooperation between the councilors, Belhar youth leaders and the City of Cape Town’s Municipality. The study further reveals that since ever the youth programme started in December 2013 under the leadership of the Belhar councilors, there were only two beneficiaries from the “youth” of that entire community who got employment after attendance for skills training. The finding further indicates that the programme mostly did not achieve its goals.

This thesis focuses on youth unemployment. Youth belongs to disadvantaged groups in the labour market, so they are given special attention. The thesis aims on identification of youth unemployment. It uses a questionnaire survey among young unemployed and recruiters. The outcome will be recommendations to improve the labour market situation.

This thesis deals with youth unemployment below 25 years of age in the European Union and Slovakia. The aim of this work is objectively evaluate and analyze the problem of unemployment, the explanation of the causes and consequences of total unemployment and youth unemployment and the definition of the main influences on the development of unemployment among people below 25 years of age. Result of the analysis suggests possible solutions how to reduce unemployment rate, or how to maintain an acceptable level of it and prediction of how will youth unemployment develop in the EU over the next five years. The work consists of six chapters. The first chapter is devoted to defining the basic concepts and explain the phenomenon of unemployment in economic terms. The second chapter presents the current state of unemployment in the European Union and Slovakia. The third chapter is analysing the development of unemployment in the European Union and Slovakia according to criteria such as gender, educational attainment and sector work. The fourth chapter focuses on the actions of the European Union to increase youth employment and the fifth chapter focuses on measures in Slovakia, along with specific examples of completed projects. Last sixth chapter contains the prediction of unemployment in the European Union in the future.