What Works: testing youth employment interventions ·
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We commissioned IES to conduct a targeted rapid evidence assessment (TREA) to inform the feasibility of developing and testing a self-employment support intervention for young people who are NEET.
It looked at 37 papers from high-income countries published over the last ten years (2015-2025) to gain a more detailed understanding of:
There is a high-level of interest in self-employment amongst young people who are NEET – with autonomy, independence and quality of life being strong motivating factors – but young people can lack the human, social and financial resources to establish their own business.
Young people tend to have lower rates of self-employment than older age groups.
For some young people, the move to self-employment comes out of necessity – UK data indicates 32% of young people (N=4,627) starting a new business between 2012 and 2023 were categorised as NEET prior to starting their business.
OECD data shows that young men are more likely to be self-employed than young women, while UK data shows young women who are NEET have higher rates of business start-ups than young men.
There are high transition rates for young people between self-employment, unemployment and inactivity, suggesting sustaining self-employment is difficult for young people.
For young people in the UK, self-employment can be associated with lower earnings.
Self-employment support programmes can help people set up business more quickly than would have otherwise been the case. Survival rates for these businesses are also high, with the majority still trading 1-3 years post support.
Studies with matched comparison groups showed that young people entering self-employment following support did earn more than they would have done otherwise. However, their earnings are not as high as they would be if they’d entered waged employment. There is also a tendency for participants to move into wage-based employment over time. However, having dual income sources may be of benefit to the participants concerned.
The type of businesses developed as a result of these schemes may provide limited growth opportunities, as they are smaller scale and rarely hire additional employees.
The findings from the TREA have been used – alongside secondary data analysis and consultations on self-employment – to develop an outline of an intervention to support young people thinking about moving into self-employment.
To understand if this works in practice as a self-employment support intervention for young people, the next steps would be to fully develop, implement and test the model.
Check out more of what we’ve acheived with Self-employment impact evaluation
Self-employment impact evaluation
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