looked for work in the period of reference). To investigate whether youth who decide to start their own household are more likely to be ninis, we examine those ninis who are either a household head, the partner of the household head, or married or in a civil partnership (to anyone, not necessarily the household head). We delve further into the relationship between nininess and family characteristics by looking at how having children affects the likelihood of being a nini.<sup>11</sup> Figure 8 summarizes this decomposition of the nini population for those aged 15 to 24 in LAC in 2010. The various categories of the nini population are presented in percentage terms, allowing us to trace the problem through this cross-section to identify which categories—each with differing motivations for nininess attached to them—the majority of ninis fall into. At any vertical point in the flowchart, the proportions of ninis in each category sum to 100 percent of ninis aged 15 to 24 years old (a total of 18.2 million youth in 2010 for the countries for which we can reliably disaggregate data). This exercise can provide a better sense of where the problem is concentrated, whether it is in fact a problem at all, and if so, which specific areas policies aimed at decreasing socalled “idleness” could focus on.

The most striking lesson from the cross-sectional breakdown in Figure 8 is that over two-thirds of ninis (68.6 percent) are women—the large majority of whom either live with their parents and are not looking for work (35.5 percent of all ninis) or have started a new household with children (17.6 percent of all ninis). In contrast, men make up only 31.4 percent of the nini population, and almost all of them (29.7 percent of all ninis) are young males still living with their parents, with over half of that group not actively searching for work. These patterns suggest that it may be wise to target anti-dropout/employment programs (depending on the age profile and individual context) at both young male and female ninis who are living with their parents and are not searching for work, perhaps because they lack skills, information, or motivation. In contrast, the nature of the nini phenomenon among women starting a household with children is intuitively very different: it could reflect a rational personal choice, and reducing the number of ninis in this category will likely involve different policies, including child care and perhaps teenage pregnancy prevention programs.

> 11 One caveat on the issue of children: due to a limitation of the SEDLAC harmonized data, we are unfortunately unable to identify the parentage of children unless they are those of the household head. We attempt to overcome this limitation by identifying those ninis who live with at least one child aged 5 years or under (the age range most likely relevant in prompting parents to stay at home to care for children) as an approximation for those that have children in this age range. Thus, for example, when we analyze trends for ninis who decide to start their own household with children, we are actually including any nini who is either a household head, partner of the household head, or married or in a civil partnership, and who is living with at least one child age 5 or under.

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