Some 25 million of Brazil 14–29-year-olds do not go to school

A study revealed 24.8 million people aged 14 through 29 did not go to school or attend any professional training course in 2016. The survey is entitled Continuous PNAD (National Household Sample Survey), and was released this week by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

Work was the main reason given (41%)—be it because they were working, looking for employment, or to start working soon. Others were not interested in continuing their studies (19.7%). The remainder said they were busy with home chores, or taking care of children, adolescents, elders, or disabled people (12.8%).

Work-related reasons were mentioned more often by males (50.5%). Also, 24.1% of them they were not interested, and 8.2% had already reached the level of education they wished.

For females, work was also the number one reason for not studying (30.5%). However, 26.1% of women and girls argued they had household chores to do or children, adolescents, elders or disabled people to take care of—a rate 30 times higher than the one observed among males.  Those not interested in going to school added up to 14.9%.

In Brazil, people 14 to 29 years old totaled 51.6 million. Of this total, 13.3% were employed and going to school; 20.5% were neither studying nor working; 32.7% did not have an occupation but were attending classes; and 33.4% were employed and not going to school.

Of the males in this age group, 14.7% were neither working nor going to school. As for females, this percentage reached 26.4%. Considering skin color and race, the most significant gap was reported for people who were neither working nor studying: 16.6% for white people, 23.3% for black and brown.

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira