Ruth (25) lives in a house with her parents and two sons in the rural town of Canta, in the Andean highlands of Peru. The home has two rooms, with a dirt floor and no access to drinking water or sewage. For Ruth, this level of extreme poverty is an inescapable reality. She dropped out of school at the age of nine, as a result of sexual abuse in her home. Now, bedridden due to severe disease, Ruth can only access unstable precarious jobs. Such short-term gigs—generally cooking or doing laundry—do not allow her the benefits of a steady income and working rights.

Around 100 km to the west, 23-year old Luzmila lives in Ventanilla, a busy, poor district in the Peruvian capital of Lima. Luzmila migrated at an early age from the province of Ayacucho, one of the poorest in the country. Raised by alcoholic parents, Luzmila quit school in fifth grade. As a result, she was unable to find a stable job. Instead, she had temporary jobs at printing presses and restaurants. Once she met her partner and gave birth to two sons, the burden of domestic work and raising the children meant she would no longer seek employment.

Focusing on Youth Marginalisation in Peru

When studying the left behind in Peru, the young appear as a marginalised group of particular interest. This age group faces tremendous challenges in both qualities of education and access to decent work. Peru’s educational system is very deficient. In 2015, Peruvian youth obtained the worst scores of the region in PISA assessments. Once the young enter the labour market, they face harsh employment conditions. According to the national household survey, 83% of the young work informally, and amongst those who are poor, 39% earn below the minimum wage.

The Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE) did a study that observes the conditions of those left behind in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Peru. Both Ruth and Luzmila are profiled in a case study conducted for the study, which is part of Southern Voice’s “State of the SDGs” report. The emphasis is on SDG 4 (Quality of Education) and SDG 8 (Decent Work). Both Luzmila and Ruth are classic examples of those marginalised in terms of access to decent employment. Although they are still young, substantial vulnerabilities experienced in childhood, coupled with inadequate and incomplete education, have led to their unsuccessful transitions into adulthood.

While both Ruth and Luzmila are left behind, they experience two differing conditions. Luzmila is an example of a NEET (a young person who is Neither in Employment, Education, or Training). She has abandoned her education, does not work, and remains at home doing chores. Ruth is a precarious worker. She might have a job, but she has no access to benefits, stability, and wages that define decent employment. Understanding the determinants of these two particular conditions is vital if SDG 8 is to be achieved for all Peruvians.

The NEET and the Precarious Workers

The NEET rate is commonly used in the literature to measure youth vulnerability. Cases such as that of Luzmila illustrate how this condition of vulnerability hinders future possibilities of a successful transition into the labour market. Currently, 18% of Peru’s young are neither in employment, education, or training. The NEET condition mainly affects women, who are burdened with reproductive and household tasks. Almost half of the NEET population (47%) are women who are not looking for work and report household chores as the main occupation.

Only focusing on the NEET, however, omits an essential group of Peruvian vulnerable young, in those with highly precarious survival jobs – like Ruth. Precarious employment is a combination of various conditions of marginalisation: it is informal, with no access to benefits, incomes that fall far below the minimum wage. It also entails short job tenures, hence placing the individual in a situation of economic instability from which it is difficult to transition into decent work. The study’s quantitative analysis of national databases determined that 12% of young people in Peru are working under precarious conditions. Together with the 18% NEET rate, this means that 30% of Peru’s young are left behind in employment.

Understanding the determinants behind these conditions is important. Many states of marginalisation were found to increase both the probability of being NEET and of being precariously employed. Factors such as being a woman, having a spouse or cohabitating, having an incomplete primary education, and living in poverty raised the likelihood of being left behind for both conditions. Disability was a particularly prominent predictor of being left behind: people with disabilities were 25.8% more likely to be NEET and 12.9% more likely to be precariously employed than their peers. Common gender stereotypes also affected the probability of being left behind. Women with children under the age of five in the household were 27% more likely to be NEET and 40% more likely to work precariously than childless men. These findings were supported by the life stories of young women interviewed for the study. Many of them mentioned the barriers that gender discrimination and the burden of childbearing can pose to successful employment in Peruvian society.

In spite of these similarities, the study also found substantial differences between who the NEET are and who the precariously employed are. The effects of cohabitation, indigenous descent, rurality, and age, for instance, diverged between the NEET and the unsteadily employed. The NEET were found to be a mostly urban, non-indigenous phenomenon. Precarious work, on the other hand, was more prevalent in rural settings and amongst indigenous youth.

Tackling Multiple Vulnerabilities in Youth Employment

Studying the labour market insertions of Peru’s young highlights the importance of the precariously employed—and not only of the NEET—when addressing the conditions of vulnerable youth. The case study also shows us how the young who are left behind live in situations of multidimensional vulnerability. They face poverty, discrimination along the lines of gender or ethnicity, and incomplete primary education. In the face of these multiple vulnerabilities, being left behind is almost inevitable. Cases similar to those of Ruth and Luzmila in the quantitative data were 96.9% and 90.8% more likely to be precariously employed or NEET, respectively.

Tackling these vulnerabilities requires more complex programming than simple vocational training, skilling, and labour market insertion projects. Instead, policies meant to improve the employment conditions of the left behind in Peru must be designed to specifically address complex vulnerabilities that many times have been developed since childhood.

About the SVSS project

The Southern Voice “State of the SDGs” initiative provides evidence-based analysis and recommendations to improve the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As a collaborative initiative, the program compiles a broad range of perspectives that are usually missing from international debates. This report aims to fill an existing knowledge gap. Southern Voice is confident that it will enrich the discussions on the SDGs and level the playfield with new voices from the Global South.

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