SINGAPORE: The number of 25 to 34-year-olds who say they are “permanently unable” to work has increased fivefold in the past 20 years, tracking with the global rise of young men “drifting around” and not in school, work, or training, in what one expert says is “one of the most severe social issues we’re facing”.
For the first time, the number of 25 to 34-year-old men who — self-reported — say they are “permanently unable” to work now exceeds the number of 35 to 44-year-old men who say the same, according to an analysis of official labour force data.
This milestone data point comes amid concern about over-diagnosis driving a cost blowout in the National Disability Insurance Scheme, largely because of mental health diagnoses, especially among boys.
At the turn of the millennium, 0.3 per cent of 25 to 34-year-olds told the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ labour force survey that they were did not have a job because they were “permanently unable to work”.
At the latest count in February this year, this had risen to 1.6 per cent.
Among men aged between 25 and 34, this rate rose from 0.3 per cent to 2 per cent in the same time.
And among women, it rose from 0.2 per cent to 1.3 per cent.
Since mid-2025, more 25 to 34-year-old men than 35 to 44-year-old men reported they were “permanently unable” to work in a majority of the monthly ABS surveys.
It is the first time that this has happened in any sustained way.
In February 2026, 15 per cent of men aged under 65 who said they were permanently unable to work were aged between 25 and 34. And 12.4 per cent were aged between 35 and 44.
It follows decades of gradual convergence of the two lines. In fact, since data has been recorded in the current form, over-35s have been making a smaller and smaller share of the total “permanently unable” population because of a rise in the number of 15 to 34-year-olds saying the same thing.
Australian National University public policy economist Robert Breunig said society needed to worry about the “striking” trend.
“The number of young men who are what we call NEET – not in education, employment or training – has gone up quite a bit in the last 10 years,” he said.
“These are 18 to 30-year-old men. And they’re not enrolling in universities. Women are 60 per cent – now – of entering university students in Australia. Men are only 40 per cent. They’re enrolling a bit more in VET training, but there’s a lot of them that just seem to not be doing anything.
“What are they doing? They’re hanging out at their parents’ house playing computer games – that’s one story that we hear. Or they’re kind of drifting around and not really finding their place in life.”
Opposition Treasury spokesman Tim Wilson said the figures were “distressing”.
“It seems more than a coincidence that there’s been an exponential increase after the establishment of the NDIS,” he said.
“This is the economy Labor has built to feed its cartel of idleness and dependence – if you feed behaviour, that’s how people will respond, and if we incentivise work and independence, that’s what Australians will respond to.”
When contacted for a response, a government spokesman noted “Australia has a record number of people in jobs” and said the NDIS grew at “22 per cent” under Coalition governments “with no moderation in sight”.
Professor Breunig said the rise of the NEET was “one of the most severe social issues that we’re facing”.
He also noted the over-representation of boys on the NDIS.
“There may be a kind of NDIS effect here, too … to get on the NDIS, you actually have to have a permanent condition,” he said.
“And so people may now describe these conditions as being permanent disabilities in a way they didn’t before, partly because of the language that we use around the NDIS.”
He said the rise of the NEET was connected to a sense of political and socio-economic disenfranchisement.
“From World War II, until about 1980, we saw a decline in populist, extremist political parties around the world – they were almost all on the left,” he said.
“Since then, we’ve now gone back to the hot point, right? The highest point in terms of non-centrist parties who are in power around the world.
“And these young boys are voting for the right. This age group in the US, 18 to 30-year-old white boys, vote a higher proportion for Trump than any other age group.”
He said this may be driven because they “feel disconnected, feel left behind by society, and they’re turning to extreme ideologies”.