Young people with mental health conditions are now more likely to be NEET
About 8 mins
Key points
- This analysis examines the relationship between the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) and the prevalence of mental health conditions. With the interim report from the review of young people and work led by Alan Milburn due to be published shortly, it highlights the significant role mental health is playing in the rising number of young people who are NEET.
- A total of 957,000 16–24-year-olds are currently NEET, an increase of over 200,000 since 2021. Our previous analysis showed that the share of NEET young people reporting work-limiting health conditions increased from 26% to 44% between 2015 and 2025, underlining the link between rising ill health among young people and the growing number of whom are NEET.
- Much of this rise has been driven by more reporting of mental health conditions. Over the same period, the share of all young people reporting mental health conditions almost doubled, from 4.1% to 7.7%.
- Our new analysis shows how the relationship between mental health and being NEET has changed over time. Between 2015 and 2019, the probability of a young person reporting a mental health condition being NEET fell by almost one-fifth, from 37% to 29%, indicating that during this period, having a mental health condition was becoming less predictive of a young person being NEET.
- However, by 2025 this trend had reversed, rising back to 34%, with the likelihood of being NEET increasing much more among those reporting a mental health condition compared with those who did not. A young person is now three times more likely to be NEET if they report having a mental health condition than those who do not.
- Our analysis indicates that, alongside the overall rise in young people reporting mental health conditions, young people with such conditions are now more likely to be NEET compared with their peers than in 2019. It has been suggested that the rising prevalence of self-reported mental health conditions in this group is due to the reporting of less severe conditions that have less effect on their ability to work – our analysis suggests this is unlikely to be correct.
- In addition to their health, there are likely to be many interrelated factors influencing the probability of a young person being NEET. These include changing opportunities in the labour market, poverty and adversity in younger life, their experience at school and the structure of the welfare system. All these factors can also have an impact on the health, and in particular the mental health, of young people.
- This analysis reinforces the need for policy solutions to focus on earlier intervention and practical support to prevent mental ill health from arising in the first place, and to provide more active support back into learning and employment for people with mental health conditions.
This analysis uses data from the Labour Force Survey between 2015 and 2025, focusing on young people aged 16–24 years.
Respondents were asked whether they had any physical or mental health conditions or illnesses lasting or expected to last 12 months or more. Those reporting a condition were then asked to identify their primary health condition. In this analysis, respondents selecting either ‘depression, bad nerves or anxiety’ or ‘mental illness or suffer from phobias, panics or other nervous disorders’ are classified as having a mental health condition.
To estimate the association between reporting a mental health condition and being NEET, we used a survey-weighted logistic regression model to predict the probability of being NEET. The analysis controlled for age, sex, region and highest qualification level.
We used the regression results to estimate predicted probabilities of being NEET for young people with and without mental health conditions over time. While these estimates describe the strength of the association between mental health conditions and NEET status, they do not necessarily identify a causal relationship.
Due to ongoing reliability issues with the Labour Force Survey, we compared the most recent data (2025), for which improvements to the sample size and reweighting were in effect, with pre-2020 data, before significant issues arose. We included the intermediate years for completeness but advise caution in interpreting trends during this period.
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However, the strength of this relationship has varied over time. Between 2015 and 2019, the probability of a young person with a mental health condition being NEET fell by almost one-fifth, from 37% to 29%. This suggests that, during this period, mental health became less predictive of a person’s chance of becoming NEET. This could reflect a range of factors, such as improved workplace inclusion, people reporting less severe mental health conditions or better recognition and support.
By 2025, however, these improvements appear to have reversed, rising back to 34%, with the likelihood of being NEET rising much more among those reporting a mental health condition compared with those who did not. As a result, the ‘NEET gap’ associated with mental health (the difference in NEET rates for young people who do and do not report having a mental health condition) has widened.
Analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies finds that the recent rise in the NEET rate is higher than expected given wider labour market conditions. This highlights the potential role of other structural changes in the rising rate, such as worsening mental health.
To understand the impact of mental health conditions on a young person’s likelihood of being NEET, the rising background prevalence of reported mental health conditions needs to be accounted for.
Figure 3 compares the NEET gap for people reporting a mental health condition with a measure that takes prevalence into account (see Box 2). Comparing the two helps to shed light on whether the increase in reported mental health conditions has been primarily among people with a lower chance of being NEET. If so, it could indicate that their condition has less of an impact on their ability to participate in paid employment, education or training.
The prevalence-adjusted mental health NEET gap follows a similar approach to the prevalence-adjusted disability employment gap.
It is calculated by multiplying the prevalence of mental health conditions reported as primary health conditions by the NEET gap (the absolute difference in NEET rates) between people with and without a primary mental health condition. This allows us to understand the role mental health conditions are playing in NEET rates that accounts for both the gap in NEET rates between people with and without a mental health condition and how common mental health conditions are.
The metric provides a simple proxy for the proportion of young people who are NEET because of their mental health condition. It is a proxy because the higher NEET rates for those with mental health conditions compared with their peers will not be entirely due to their mental health conditions but also due to wider factors such as poverty, region of residence, educational attainment and so on. However, changes in the prevalence-adjusted gap can indicate whether a change in the reporting of mental health conditions has increased or decreased the likelihood of people with a mental health condition being NEET.
In 2025, the gap in NEET rates between young people with and without a mental health condition was larger than before the pandemic – irrespective of whether prevalence of reported conditions is accounted for. Our analysis shows that young people with reported mental health conditions are now even more likely to be NEET compared with their peers than before the pandemic. This is the case even though there was an overall rise in reported mental health conditions among young people in general.
It has been suggested that the rise in reported mental health conditions among young people is due to this group reporting less severe conditions that do not necessarily affect their ability to work. Our analysis shows two reasons why this interpretation is unlikely to be correct. First, the growth in the prevalence-adjusted NEET gap suggests that there are more young people who are NEET because of their reported mental health conditions, not simply that there are just more young people overall reporting them (Figure 3, right chart). Second, in recent years specifically, young people with reported mental health conditions have become relatively more likely to be NEET (Figure 3, left chart).