Youth Month Reflection: Strengthening Support and Pathways for South Africa's Young People

June marks Youth Month in South Africa, a moment to celebrate young people’s agency and to reflect on how we can better support them. The statistics have become dauntingly familiar: youth unemployment approaches 61% for the 15 – 24 cohort and exceeds 45% for the 15 – 34 group; approximately 3.9 million (15 – 24) and 9.6 million (15 – 34) young people are NEET, disconnected from both learning and earning. These aggregate figures hide that many youth also cycle between short-term and often precarious work, as well as short-term learning opportunities and periods of inactivity. For many, the challenge is therefore not only unemployment but a protracted, uncertain transition to adulthood and an inability to escape a life in deprivation.

Addressing the country’s youth unemployment challenge requires action across the entire opportunity pipeline. South Africa needs stronger labour demand through private sector investment, supported entrepreneurship, and ongoing job creation, alongside an education and skills system that is able to build young people's capabilities. It also needs effective forms of intermediation that help young people to navigate transitions between education, training, and work.

Yet, in a context of slow growth, constrained resources, and persistent exclusion, support systems must also become better at connecting young people to opportunities and pathways towards both social and economic inclusion. Integrated approaches to social protection and youth activation increasingly seek to achieve this by combining support, navigation, and referral functions in ways that are responsive to young people's circumstances and needs. This reflects a broader shift in thinking about social protection: from systems designed primarily as safety nets, towards systems that also enable people to overcome barriers, access opportunities, and participate in economic and social life.

A central challenge for these systems is that different young people experience very different barriers to participation. Some may find themselves “closer to the labour market”, requiring little more than information, job matching, or placement support, while others face multiple and overlapping disadvantages that make successful transitions into employment or training far more difficult. Recognising this, organisations such as the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the World Bank increasingly advocate for profiling and segmentation approaches within employment and activation systems, allowing support to be matched more closely to need and capability. This represents a move away from one-size-fits-all employment services towards approaches that assess levels of labour market risk and tailor support intensity accordingly.

A recent SALDRU working paper contributes to this growing conversation by examining whether NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training) status alone provides sufficient information for targeting support, or whether deeper forms of vulnerability offer a more useful basis for intervention.

The paper develops a Youth Multidimensional Vulnerability Index (YMVI), applying the Alkire-Foster method across four domains: financial burden, labour market orientation, mental wellbeing, and social networks. The index builds on an initial version developed using data from the Basic Package of Support (BPS) pilot programme, which had already shown that NEET youth who remained disconnected across multiple coaching sessions carried higher vulnerability than those who transitioned into education, training or employment (Grotte et al., forthcoming). This paper uses the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) to test whether this finding holds using a nationally representative, longitudinal sample.

The nationally representative analysis strengthens the BPS-based findings considerably. The results show that in Wave 1, nearly 90% of NEET youth were multidimensionally vulnerable, compared to lower levels among youth who were employed, studying, or in training. Furthermore, this baseline vulnerability predicts NEET status nine to ten years later, even after accounting for current NEET status. In other words, it is the depth and breadth of overlapping deprivations that a young person carries, rather than their NEET status on any given day, that primarily determines whether their disengagement is a temporary or chronic condition. The vulnerability index thus provides a useful proxy for understanding a young person's distance from sustainable labour market participation. 

The analysis also demonstrates that vulnerability extends beyond poverty and educational disadvantage to include labour market readiness, social connectedness, and mental wellbeing. This reinforces evidence that exclusion is shaped by multiple, intersecting barriers, and supports the argument that to break exclusion, these various barriers need to be addressed.

The policy implications are significant. South Africa has prioritised concerted efforts to develop pathways for young people through employment services, activation programmes, skills development initiatives, and large-scale public employment programmes. These are all crucial building blocks, but there is growing recognition that support systems need to become more responsive to the diverse circumstances and needs of young people: ‘pathwaying’ has to begin with an accurate identification of where young people are starting from. Failing to do so risks directing the wrong support to the wrong individuals. Some will benefit from labour market matching and placement support, while others require skills development or more intensive and coordinated interventions before economic participation becomes realistic. 

This is where multidimensional profiling becomes valuable. The contribution of the YMVI is that, while it helps to identify vulnerable young people, it also provides a mechanism for distinguishing between different levels and forms of vulnerability. This allows support to be calibrated more appropriately: by providing a more nuanced understanding of young people's circumstances, the index creates a foundation for more effective pathwaying into social and economic inclusion opportunities.

The paper therefore shifts the conversation from broad youth targeting towards a more differentiated triage approach, where the type and intensity of support can be informed by a better understanding of underlying vulnerability and need. 

Youth unemployment ultimately requires stronger economic growth, skills development, and opportunity creation. However, in a context of constrained resources and diverse needs, profiling and segmentation can improve how limited support is allocated. It can ensure that lighter-touch services are provided where there are fewer barriers, while more intensive and coordinated support is directed towards those facing deeper vulnerabilities. The YMVI offers one evidence-based tool for doing so.