Forty-five against four
In their latest reported year, 45.4% of young women in Pakistan were neither in employment nor in education or training, and 3.9% of all young people in the Netherlands: the widest gap between the sexes of 117 countries in the first, the lowest rate of the 117 in the second. The table sets the two among the other economies this desk publishes in, plus South Africa, Egypt, Brazil and the Emirates.
The spread is wide at both ends. Thirteen of the 117 countries are at 30% or more and 31 are under 10%; the median country sits at 15.3%. Nauru, at 50.4%, and Djibouti, at 44.0%, report the highest rates; Iceland, at 4.0%, is next to the Netherlands at the bottom. South Africa, at 34.6%, is the highest of the eighteen, and there the two sexes are two points apart.
Young women’s rate is higher than young men’s in 82 of the 117, by a median of 2.2 points, and in 15 countries it is more than double. The gap is 32.3 points in Pakistan, 45.4% against 13.1%; 30.6 in Mali; 27.7 in Guatemala; 27.6 in India, 39.7% against 12.1%. In 35 countries the men’s rate is the higher one, among them the United Kingdom, 15.2% against 13.6%, France, 11.6% against 10.4%, and Spain, 9.9% against 8.9%.
| Economy | Year | All | Women | Men | Rank of 117 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| South Africa | 2024 | 34.6% | 35.6% | 33.6% | 10 |
| Pakistan | 2025 | 28.5% | 45.4% | 13.1% | 18 |
| India | 2025 | 25.6% | 39.7% | 12.2% | 22 |
| Egypt | 2024 | 23.8% | 34.8% | 14.8% | 29 |
| Türkiye | 2025 | 23.3% | 30.9% | 16.3% | 30 |
| Indonesia | 2023 | 21.4% | 26.3% | 16.7% | 34 |
| Brazil | 2025 | 18.7% | 22.9% | 14.6% | 45 |
| Philippines | 2024 | 16.5% | 20.2% | 12.9% | 54 |
| United Kingdom | 2025 | 14.4% | 13.6% | 15.2% | 66 |
| Thailand | 2025 | 12.4% | 14.3% | 10.5% | 77 |
| France | 2025 | 11.0% | 10.4% | 11.6% | 82 |
| Viet Nam | 2024 | 10.3% | 11.4% | 9.2% | 85 |
| Poland | 2025 | 10.1% | 11.1% | 9.1% | 86 |
| Spain | 2025 | 9.4% | 8.9% | 9.9% | 90 |
| Germany | 2025 | 8.2% | 8.4% | 8.0% | 99 |
| United Arab Emirates | 2025 | 7.5% | 13.2% | 4.9% | 104 |
| Portugal | 2025 | 6.9% | 6.9% | 7.0% | 107 |
| Netherlands | 2025 | 3.9% | 4.1% | 3.8% | 117 |
What moves with the rate
Across the 116 countries with an income figure, the rate moves against income: the correlation with log GDP per person is minus 0.69. The women’s rate moves against it more strongly, at minus 0.72, than the men’s, at minus 0.54. The two rates correlate at 0.77 with each other: a country where many young men are outside work and school is, mostly, one where many young women are too.
The gap between the sexes moves against income as well, at minus 0.50. Where a country is poorer, the distance between its young women and its young men is wider, and where it is richer the two rates converge or cross. Pakistan and India, with the widest gaps in the table, sit in the poorer half; the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Portugal, where the men’s rate is the higher or the two are level, sit in the richer.
Pakistan and the Netherlands are at the two ends of that line. Pakistani young men, at 13.1%, are close to British young men at 15.2%; it is the women’s 45.4% that makes the country’s rate. In the Netherlands, 4.1% of young women and 3.8% of young men, and the 41 points between the two countries’ young women are wider than any gap between the sexes in the table.
- THE NUMERATOR is every person aged 15 to 24 who is not employed, by the ILO’s rule of at least one hour of paid work in the week, AND not in education or training. Someone in either is not counted.
- THE DENOMINATOR is every person aged 15 to 24, in the labour force or not. This is not an unemployment rate: most of the young people counted here are not looking for work, and the unemployed are only a part of them.
- UNPAID WORK AT HOME is neither employment nor education. A young woman raising children, keeping a household or working the family’s land without pay is counted here, by definition, and the figure does not say what she does with her day.
So Pakistan’s 45.4% does not say that 45 young women in a hundred are idle, nor that they are unemployed: it says that neither a paid job nor a classroom holds them, and the source does not say what does. And the Netherlands’ 3.9% is a share of all its young people, students included in the denominator, which is why a country where most of them are still in school sits at the bottom.
One share, three qualifiers, and a reading that drops any of them says something the source does not.
What the rate does not say
It does not say who is idle. The measure counts everyone aged 15 to 24 who is in neither a paid job nor a classroom, and unpaid work at home is neither: a young woman raising children or working the family’s land without pay is inside the 45.4%. The source records that she is outside employment and education, and nothing about her day.
It does not say who is unemployed. The unemployed are looking for work; most of the young people counted here are not in the labour force at all, and the share is of every young person, not of those seeking a job. A country’s youth unemployment rate is a different number and is not in this piece.
And it names no cause and no verdict. Marriage, schooling, the law, custom, the state of the economy and the jobs on offer all sit behind these figures, and none of them is measured here; nor does anything here say that any rate rose or fell. One year per country, different years across them: nothing here is a trend.
What the data establishes
- In their latest reported year, 45.4% of young women in Pakistan (2025) and 3.9% of all young people in the Netherlands (2025) were neither in employment nor in education or training: the widest gap between the sexes and the lowest rate of 117 countries.
- Across the 117, the median country is at 15.3%; thirteen are at 30% or more and 31 under 10%; the range runs from 3.9% in the Netherlands to 50.4% in Nauru.
- Young women’s rate is higher than young men’s in 82 of the 117, by a median of 2.2 points, and more than double in 15: 32.3 points in Pakistan, 30.6 in Mali, 27.7 in Guatemala, 27.6 in India. In 35 countries the men’s rate is the higher, among them the United Kingdom, France and Spain.
- Across countries the rate correlates at minus 0.69 with log income, the women’s rate at minus 0.72 and the men’s at minus 0.54; the gap between the sexes at minus 0.50; and the two rates at 0.77 with each other.
What it does not
- That anyone is idle. Unpaid work at home is neither employment nor education, and the source does not say what a young person counted here does with the day.
- That the rate is unemployment. Most of those counted are not looking for work, and the share is of every young person, not of the labour force.
- That any rate rose or fell. One year per country, and different years across countries: nothing here is a trend.
- Any cause, including marriage, schooling, law, custom or the state of the economy. None of them is measured here.
- Anything about Japan, China, Morocco or South Korea, which do not report this series in the table used, or about Belarus, whose series breaks between 2022 and 2024.
Method
- One measure, one observation per country. ILOSTAT dataflow DF_EIP_NEET_SEX_RT, share of youth aged 15 to 24 not in employment, education or training, by sex, read through the ILO SDMX API on 18 September 2026. For each country the latest annual observation among 2023, 2024 and 2025 is used, for all young people, women and men alike; every figure in the exhibit is a national labour force or household survey harmonised by the ILO.
- AGGREGATES ARE NOT COUNTRIES. The ILO serves regions and income groups under codes shaped like country codes; they were removed by keeping only codes in the World Bank’s country list, leaving 118. Belarus was then removed: its series reads 5.1% in 2022 and 65.7% in 2024, a break in the processing and not a labour market, and a maximum built on it would be false. That leaves 117 countries: 77 whose latest year is 2025, 26 with 2024 and 14 with 2023. Every rank and count is out of the 117. Japan, China, Morocco and South Korea do not report this series in that table, which is why the exhibit holds twelve of this desk’s sixteen markets and six other economies.
- The median is the mean of the 58th and 59th values, 15.29% and 15.30%, so 15.3%. The gap by sex is the women’s rate minus the men’s in the same country and year; the median of the 117 gaps is 2.19 points, shown as 2.2. Thirteen countries are at 30% or more, 31 under 10%; in 82 the women’s rate is the higher, in 35 the men’s, and in 15 the women’s is more than double the men’s.
- The correlations are Pearson coefficients across countries between each rate, and the gap, and the natural logarithm of GDP per capita at PPP (World Bank NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KD, 2024, 116 countries); and between the women’s and men’s rates across the 117. They describe how the figures sit together across countries, not how any country moved.
- Rounding is done once, at display. The difference between Pakistan’s young women and the Netherlands’ is 41.4 points from the unrounded 45.418 and 4.051, shown as 41. The eighteen economies are the twelve markets of this desk with a figure, plus Pakistan, the Netherlands, South Africa, Egypt, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates.
Primary sources
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