Against All Odds? Sami Women’s Lower NEET Experience in An Arctic Context: Education and Work Participation among Multicultural Young People in Northern-Norway, the Norwegian Arctic Adolescent Health Study (NAAHS).

NORWAY; FINNMARK fylke (Norway)

The present paper aims to explore and discuss how the factors of gender, class, and culture work together to form pathways from school to work among Sami women in Arctic Norway. The focus is to explore Sami women’s lower NEET (Not engaged in Education, Employment, or Training) experience from an ethnoreligious multi-context perspective. Data are derived from a cross-sectional cohort and registry follow-up study in Northern Norway, 2003–2012, and data from Statistics Norway are included for an up-to-date data analysis (2021). This is a cross-sectional cohort and registry data study in Northern Norway, 2003-2012. The participants were adolescents and young people. Out of 5 877 junior high school pupils (15-16 years old), 83% answered a questionnaire in a cross-sectional study, the Norwegian Arctic Adolescent Health Study (NAAHS), whereas consent-based follow-up consisted of 68% (3987 young people). There is an ethnic self-report of 9.2% with Sami ethnicity in the respondent/consent group, hence 10% in NAAHS.  As explained by ethnoreligious affiliation, the outcome variables were educational aspirations, the non-completion of high school, higher education completion, and NEET experience among female Sami young adults. The explanatory variables are sociodemographic factors (gender, ethnicity, residency). Stratification of the participants is made by dividing girls and boys, Sami and non-Sami, Laestadian and non-Laestadian, and residency by counties in Arctic Norway (previously Finnmark, Troms, and Nordland). The results show that Sami women stood positively out compared to the majority women and all men through the footprint to work participation. Some of the conclusions from the study are that sociocultural and macroeconomic factors must be highlighted and considered to ensure and evolve for Sami women’s further work participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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