Prevalence

It is important to understand who has been considered at risk of becoming opportunity youth and which groups of youth have been most affected. Furthermore, it is also important to track the rates of opportunity youth during the pandemic and how these rates are changing. The pandemic has presented more barriers to school and work opportunities and will directly affect most youth, particularly those who are most vulnerable. A recent report from Measure of America, a leading organization in analyzing and presenting data on opportunity youth, estimates that the number of disconnected youth will reach over 6 million youth in the U.S., and potentially up to one-fourth of all youth.¹

The most recent available data from the American Community Survey, shows that from 2010 to 2017, the disconnection rate of opportunity youth in the U.S. significantly dropped from nearly 15 percent to 11.5 percent, totaling about 4.5 million young people.² This decrease resulted in 1.3 million fewer young people being disconnected from school and work.³

However, this decrease was not equal across groups and regions, and some sub-groups of opportunity youth have increased. Measure of America, using data from the American Community Survey, found that the top three factors for increased probability of becoming an opportunity youth are region/residential environment, race/ethnicity, and income.⁴ Other special populations are also discussed in the following summary to highlight that there is no one typical experience of opportunity youth.

Region and Residential Environment

There is a wide range of opportunity youth rates across the U.S. depending on the region and type of residential environment (suburban, urban, and rural). For instance, Figure 1 helps to show that youth and young adults in rural areas have the highest rate of disconnection at about 19 percent, while the New England (8.3%) and West North Central (8.6%) (this includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, and Nebraska) regions have the lowest rates of opportunity youth.⁵

Figure 1: Rates of Youth Disconnection by State

While the national average of opportunity youth is about 12 percent, the rural south has a rate of 24 percent.⁶ Further highlighting this residential environment disparity, individuals from suburban communities (11%) and urban communities (13%) are less likely to become opportunity youth than peers from rural areas (19%).⁷

Poverty

Opportunity youth are almost twice as likely as connected youth to live in poverty. Research suggests that an individual who comes from a high poverty area is significantly more likely (21%) to be an opportunity youth than peers from low poverty areas (6%).⁸ Growing up in poverty can expose young people to challenging circumstances such as low-quality schools, unreliable transportation, poor health outcomes, and community violence.

Other Special Populations

It is important to note that opportunity youth can represent multiple backgrounds, meaning there is no one unique experience of opportunity youth. Therefore, an individual may have multifaceted needs from having a disability, expecting a child or being a parent, facing homelessness, and/or being or having been incarcerated. Some of these groups are considered “invisible” among opportunity youth data as they are not yet represented in many data collection systems.⁹

• Disability: Youth with disabilities are at a significantly higher risk of becoming disconnected from their community. More than 16 percent of disconnected youth have some sort of disability while only five percent of connected youth have a disability.¹⁰
• Expectant and Parenting Youth and Young Adults: Youth and young adults who are expectant or parenting make up about 28 percent of individuals who are classified as opportunity youth.¹¹ Disconnected young women are more than four times as likely to be a mother than connected young women.¹²
• Homelessness: A large portion of youth experiencing homelessness are disconnected from school as they have experienced significant disruptions in their education. They may experience long periods of time without attending school, which can lead to students not completing high school or beyond.¹³ Youth who are homeless often have few opportunities to develop academic or job skills needed to gain employment.
• Incarceration: Youth who are or have been incarcerated are at a higher risk of becoming disconnected from their communities.¹⁴ Additionally, they are more likely to be disproportionally Black (12%) compared to white peers (7%).¹⁵ While overall rates of youth incarceration decreased by 54 percent from 2001 to 2017, Black youth are on average more than four times as likely to be incarcerated as their white peers, despite being no more likely to commit crimes.¹⁶

References

¹ Lewis, 2020
² Mendelson, Mmari, Blum, Catalano, & Brindis, 2018
³ Lewis, 2019
⁴ Lewis, 2019
⁵ Lewis, 2019 
⁶ Mendelson, Mmari, Blum, Catalano, & Brindis, 2018 
⁷ Lewis, 2019; Mendelson, Mmari, Blum, Catalano, & Brindis, 2018
⁸ Burd-Sharps & Lewis, 2018
⁹ Mendelson, Mmari, Blum, Catalano, & Brindis, 2018
¹⁰ Lewis, 2019
¹¹ Burd-Sharps & Lewis, 2017
¹² Lewis, 2019
¹³ Borges Martins, Elder, Lewis, & Burd-Sharps, 2009
¹⁴ Lewis, Burd-Sharps, & Ofrane, 2018
¹⁵ Lewis, Burd-Sharps, & Ofrane, 2018
¹⁶ Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/ezapop/