NEET, But Not the Same: The Widening Educational Divide Between NEETs and EETs in Romania

Romania's NEET population has become increasingly less educated relative to young people in education, employment, or training, with the proportional educational gap widened from −9% to −33% between 2014 and 2024, a trajectory that diverges sharply from the gradual EU27 trend. This article documents and explains that divergence by applying and extending the Δedu indicator of Pesquera Alonso, Muñoz Sánchez, and Iniesta Martínez to Romania using Eurostat panel data. Bivariate regression models across 30 variables spanning labour market structure, sectoral composition, household characteristics, and educational indicators, are estimated for Romania and the EU27, and disaggregated by gender. Unemployment and NEET rates do not predict the educational composition of the NEET population. The near-absence of part-time employment (R² = 0.956), the decline of traditional low-skill sectors, and the prevalence of extended-family households are the strongest correlates of the widening gap, and several of these associations operate in the opposite direction in Romania compared to Southern Europe. When the results are broken down by gender, a more complex picture emerges as men's educational gap is shaped primarily by the availability of sector-specific employment, while women's reflects family structure and care responsibilities operating outside the labour market. These findings point to the labour market and the broader socio-economic context, rather than the educational system, as the primary structural setting for Romania's NEET educational divide, and suggest the need for gender-differentiated rather than uniform policy responses.