In Costa Rica, 307,781 young people between the ages of 12 and 35 neither study nor work (ninis), that is they are not enrolled in a public or private school nor are part of the country’s workforce.
The figure represents 17% of the 1.8 million population in that age range.
That was the findings of the study called “Gentico”, conducted by Unimer and Kolbi, with the aim of profiling and understanding the reality of how this group behaves.
The investigation, which was presented on Tuesday, took place between August 17 and 29 of this year, of face-to-face interviews with 1,200 Costa Ricans between the ages of 12 and 35. The margin of error is 2.8 percentage points.
According to the analysis, 33% (594,000) of the people in this age group work, while 38% (684,000) study and 12% (216,000) work and study.
The numbers revealed by the Unimer/Kolbi study coincides with the percentages released in 2016 by the State Report to the Nation – Programa Estado de la Nación (PEN).
The Unimer/Kolbi study does not reveal the reasons why this sector of the population does not study or work. Andres Romero, the Ministry of Labor’s national director of employment, explained that this has to do with poverty.
One of the characteristics of the ninis is that approximately 80% do have a high school diploma.
“In addition, they do not have work experience nor skills for the labor market, they are in a situation of poverty and there is no possibility of investing in studies,” Romero said.
