Study conducted by Pierre Derieux and Christophe Sanchez

The school environment : a critical situation

Over the past 20 years, the situation of young people in our country has not improved: just as many of them continue to experience difficulties in finding employment when they leave the school system. In total, nearly 100,000 young people in each age group – out of 800,000 – find themselves permanently “out of touch” with employment and training.

Serious consequences, deep-rooted problems

Among them, the plight of those with few or no qualifications is particularly worrying. Half of all non-graduates are unemployed three years after leaving school, a proportion that has doubled in 20 years. Far from being temporary, their social difficulties will become more acute throughout their lives, alternating between periods of unemployment and precarious employment for a majority of them. These young people are, so to speak, the focus of our country’s future social misery.

Our study : shattering preconceptions and moving towards hope

Who are these dropouts? What is their background? What are we doing to support them ? What could we do better ? This study provides the keys to understanding a phenomenon that has been rendered invisible by analyses that are too often fragmented, and invites us to take action, collectively, to deal with the emergency. Taking action for young people dropping out of school today means preventing the social misery of tomorrow.