status zer0

• Status Zer0
• status zero

status zer0 (uncountable)

1. (UK, dated, of youth) A status of having no employment and not in any educational or training programme.
   • 1997, Howard Williamson, Youth and policy: contexts and consequences, →ISBN:

     A cursory comparison of status zer0 young people from two neighbouring, but contrasting localities illuminates not only important similarities amongst status zer0 young people but also some striking differences: in backgrounds, support networks, attitudes and anticipated futures.

   • 2004, Anita Harris, Future Girl: Young Women in the Twenty-First Century, →ISBN:

     At their most desperate or resourceful, young women who are status zer0 survive through the criminal economy and in many cases through prostitution.

   • 2004, Peter Dwyer, Johanna Wyn, Youth, Education and Risk: Facing the Future, →ISBN, page 40:

     What was particularly disturbing in the data is that, of those in 'status zer0', 'long-term' members far outnumbered the 'short-termers' who had spent less than six months out of work and learning - only 6 out of the 402 sample (Istance et al., 1994, p. 53).

In Britain, the use of this term is being phased out in favor of the less pejorative-sounding acronym NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training).