Negotiating Labor Under Patriarchal Pandemic Conditions: Female NEET in Tunisia

A quarter of Tunisia's population are youth not in education, employment or training (NEET), and particularly vulnerable
to frustration, social isolation and political protest (World Bank 2014; Maguire 2015). It is estimated that the number of
youth NEET will rise dramatically as COVID-19 shocks to the global and Tunisian economy hit youth the hardest (OECD
2020). Growing interest in interdisciplinary research reveals the drawbacks to approaching contemporary unemployment
issues with simplified economic solutions, creating a need for the application of interdisciplinary thinking to fully address
the complexity of the youth experience in relation to work (Huang 2016; Kareem 2011, Elyachar 2005; Zouari 2014;
Kabbani 2019). As humanitarian institutions pursue decent work goals in the midst of pandemic recovery, the question of
how and by what means women negotiate mobility through socio-spatial boundaries has become an important research
focus for the field of international development. Responding to the need to integrate youth perspectives in policy
formation on unemployment and underemployment (Barford and Coombe 2019; Barford and Cieslik 2019; O'Higgins
2017; Restless Development 2019), this study utilizes 'NEET' as a research category and explores multiple
positionalities relating to work among women in Tunisia, aiming to provide a more thorough analysis of the perspectives
of female youth NEET with regards to their relationship with employment.