What is a Moral Crisis?
Why have so many young people have become victims of a culture of low expectations?
Policymakers in Britain have finally woken up to the fact that the nation faces a generational crisis. Around one million young people aged 16 to 24 are not in education, employment or training (NEET). Their number of has grown by 195,000 over the past two years and if present pattern continues the size of this cohort will continue to increase in the years ahead. A recently published report, Young people and work, makes for grim reading. The report’s author, the former Labour grandee, Alan Milburn, goes so far as to warn that Britain is ‘at risk of a lost generation’[i].
To his credit Milburn recognises that what is at stake is not merely the usual economic and social problem associated with youth unemployment or underemployment. He wrote that what is at stake is a ‘moral crisis’, one which has ‘economic consequences’. He estimated that the cumulative annual cost to the UK of the million NEETs is around £ 125 billion, which is more than state expenditure on education.
Unfortunately, the report’s reference to a moral crisis has the character of a passing remark, which is not elaborated or further. There is a good reason why Milburn and members of Britain’s political class are not prepared nor able to explore the meaning of their nation’s moral crisis. They instinctively eschew the language of morality and rarely draw attention to moral ideals such as duty, responsibility, courage or patriotism. Had they taken the concept of moral crisis seriously they would have had to acknowledge their responsibility for failing to socialise the young to embrace the kind of moral values they need to make their way in this world.
Every society needs clarity about what moral virtues a community should transmit to its young in the context of a rapidly changing world. This question has been thoroughly evaded by successive governments leading to the moral disarmament of society. Society’s educational and cultural institutions have consciously rejected the language of morality as irrelevant to the needs of a modern 21st century world.
The consequence of society’s moral disarmament has a particularly pernicious impact on the young. Without the clarity provided by sound moral guidance, young people are deprived of clarity about their place in the world. The inevitable confusion that ensues is made worse by the fact that their behaviour is invariably interpreted through the prism of medicine and psychology. As I noted in previous essays published on Roots & Wings, the medicalisation of human behaviour deprives young people of their agency. The growing number of NEETs is a tragic expression of this development. Deprived of the values, rules and authorities that normally empower the young to confront the challenges they face far too many of them find it difficult to make the transition to adulthood.
For my analysis of the NEET phenomenon check out the essay I published on spiked-online - https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/05/30/the-young-are-trapped-by-hideously-low-expectations/ , a draft of which is below:
Why have so many young people have become victims of a culture of low expectations?
It is not surprising that virtually everyone who is concerned about the future of the United Kingdom is worried about the fact that a record of more than one million young people – around one in eight aged 16 to 24 – are not in education, employment or training (NEET)[ii]. The number of NEETs has grown by 195,000 over the past two years and if present pattern continues the size of this cohort will continue to increase in the years ahead.
According to a government sponsored review of the NEET situation one in six young people will not be in work or education within five years unless ‘urgent steps’ are taken[iii]. Former Labour grandee, Alan Milburn, the author of this report warns that Britain is ‘at risk of a lost generation’. Of these NEETs around 430,00 to 530,000 are recipients of out-of-work benefits such as universal credit.[iv]
There are good reasons to be worried about the growth of the NEET phenomenon. Being NEET ‘at a young age increases people’s chances of being unemployed or in low pay later in life’[v]. The phenomenon of a sizeable non-productive cohort of young people constitutes a significant drag on the economy. More importantly society’s acquiescence to the NEET phenomenon exacts significant human costs and encourages a sense of hopelessness among those affected. Worst still society’s acceptance of this phenomenon has contributed to the prevalence of a regime of low expectations amongst sections of British youth.
Unfortunately, policy makers and charities that are charged with dealing with the NEET phenomenon have failed to grasp the nature of the problem. A widely reported, recently published study titled Inside the Mind of a Young NEET exemplifies the lazy thinking that informs policy deliberations on this subject. The report, which fed into the Milburn Review appears to be obsessed with dispelling the claim that the NEET generation is ‘lazy’.
The report co-authored by Peter Hyman and Shuab Gamote argues ‘that Britain must stop blaming the one million young people not in education, employment or training, known as NEETs, for a system that has let them down[vi]’. This sentiment was stridently echoed by Milburn during the interviews that he gave to the media on the findings of his review. This is an example of tilting at windmills since no one possessing a modicum of good sense blames young people for the predicament they face.
Unfortunately, the report is so devoted to the goal of relieving NEETs of any responsibility for the situation they face that it goes overboard and flatters them as a ‘resilient, talented generation’ that has been failed by a system designed for a world that no longer exists. In the media, Inside the Mind of a Young NEET was trailed as ‘a story of resilience, untapped potential’ and its authors have dedicated it to the ‘extraordinary young people who were willing to share their lives with us’[vii].
The attribution of resilience and extraordinary qualities to young people who in many cases are reluctant to leave their digital bedrooms is underpinned by the outlook of low expectations that characterizes the different charity and education sectors dealing with the socialization of young people.
Inside the Mind of a Young NEET tends to present young people as actual or potential mental health patients who suffer from the trauma inflicted by their life experience. Unfortunately the narrative of medicalizing social and cultural challenges facing the young frames the way the experience of the NEETs is discussed. It notes that
‘We listened to many young people with traumatic stories to tell about their family life, school, attempts to work, mental health. We need to ask ourselves as a nation: What are we doing to the next generation? Why are so many growing up in pain? Why is the system failing them so badly?’
The authors assume that young people face an exceptional level of pain and trauma and overlook the fact that throughout history growing up has always exacted significant emotional costs.
Unfortunately, the Milburn Review is strongly influenced by the mental health narrative. Milburn stated that ‘For the first time, in perhaps two centuries, changes in health, especially mental health, are impeding economic growth and causing a contraction in the supply of labour’.[viii] His reasoning is based on the fact that in 2025, 44 per cent of NEETs reported having a “work-limiting” health condition. This had risen from 26 per cent in 2015[ix]. Milburn’s focus on mental health has led him to criticize the NHS for not recognizing youth employment as a ‘core health outcome’[x]. Sadly, once employment is perceived through the prism of a health outcome than work itself becomes medicalized.
One of the most regrettable consequence of the medicalization of the NEET experience is that it treats young people’s account of their circumstances uncritically. For examples it reports young people’s account of a system that treats them as ‘as either ready for full-time work or not ready for work at all’. It noted that ‘Many young people told us they wanted to work but felt they could not immediately cope with 35 or 40 hours a week’. It added that they said, ‘that part-time work, supported work, trial shifts and gradual increases in hours would help them build confidence and get used to the routines of work’.
What this report overlooks is that if a significant number of young people believe that they cannot cope with full time work it is because they have grown up in an environment that taught them that it is unreasonable to expect them to do so. The authors of the report never pose the question of why was it that generations of young people in the past regarded full time work as an opportunity rather then a challenge that was beyond their capabilities. If they had tried to address this question, they would have discovered that unlike in previous historical settings work was not perceived as something so exceptional that it required a prolonged phase of transition.
In its desire to avoid any criticism of the attitude of the NEETs Inside the Mind of a Young NEET simply acquiesces to their attitude towards work. For example, it reports that ‘Some young people have got into a habit of quitting fuelled by social media. Young people told us about the promotion online of instant success leads to a quitting culture if things take time’. And it adds that ‘some young people told us they enjoy the dopamine hit of a new job but then get bored very quickly and want to move on’.
There is of course nothing new about the habit of quitting and being bored with work. What is new is that supposed experts of young people’s lives represent this attitude as a fact of life created by the social media. Instead of raising questions about the lack of cultural support for a work ethic and the failure of the current regime of socialisation to encourage young people to internalise the habit of discipline and effort the Inside the Mind of a Young NEET prefers to point the finger of blame at the social media.
To his credit Milburn has recognised that what is at stake is ‘more than an economic crisis, it is a moral one’. However, he is reluctant to draw out the logic of his insight, which is that newly minted economic or mental health related policies will fail to deal with this problem unless the morality sustaining low expectations is challenged.
The most disturbing feature of Inside the Mind of a Young NEET is that it implicitly calls for the validation of the outlook of how the NEETs see the world. However instead of validating these supposedly ‘extraordinary’ young people we need to understand why and how they have become overwhelmed by the culture of low expectations that legitimates their way of life.
The NEET phenomenon is the outcome of a regime of socialisation that systematically infantilises young people. From early childhood to late teenagerhood young people are treated as by definition ‘vulnerable’ and incapable of agency. No matter what they do they are told that they are ‘extraordinary’. Every type of transition - from childhood to primary school, from primary to big school, from secondary to higher education, to the workplace – are treated as challenges that the young cannot be expected to manage on their own. And when the young are educated into believing that they are vulnerable, helpless and lacking in agency is it any surprise that so many of them find it so difficult to find their place in the world`?
[ii] https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/young-people-education-work-school-37184118
· [iii] https://www.bbc.com/news/live/clypw8gyn18t
[iv] https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/inequalities/2025/12/10/three-myths-about-neets-in-the-uk/
[v] https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/inequalities/2025/12/10/three-myths-about-neets-in-the-uk/
https://youthworkunit.com/reports/inside-the-mind-of-a-young-neet/
[vii] https://youthworkunit.com/reports/inside-the-mind-of-a-young-neet/
[viii] https://www.bbc.com/news/live/clypw8gyn18t
[ix] https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/alan-milburn-report-review-neets-key-takeaways-5k5t83wgt
[x] https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/alan-milburn-report-review-neets-key-takeaways-5k5t83wgt
Brilliant Frank and what an indictment of our moral order: your phrase 'moral disarmament of society' could not express it better. There's something too about the way freedom is not valued any more in this generation - at least, not in the way we valued it growing up - because wanting to work is part of making that possible. I remember the shock of my discovery in a seminar for a module I was teaching on the sociology of the life course in which I discussed Terri Castle's essay: Becoming an Orphan. Doubtless you know it, but in it Castle argues that to truly grow up and individuate/self-actualise young people must metaphorically "orphan themselves" from their families. I asked my students whether they wanted to be free from their families and they looked at me dumbfoundedly. "Why would I want that? My family wants what's best for me," 'said one girl, folding her arms across her chest defensively. "It was difficult when I went to Nigeria on my gap year because we could only SKYPE once a day," said another (this was before zoom times). "My parents call me several times a day. They'll call me after this lecture, to see how it went," said another. I gave up at that point.