By Alfonso Fernandez

Washington, Jan 19 (EFE; additional context by The Costa Rica Star).– One of every five people in Latin America between the ages of 15 and 24 is neither in school nor working and two-thirds of them are women, according to a World Bank study released Tuesday.

The figure represents more than 20 million people in the region and the problem is especially acute in Central America, Mexico and Colombia, where it is aggravated by the long-term presence of organized crime, study co-author Rafael de Hoyos told EFE in a telephone interview.

The percentage varies from 10.9 percent in Peru to more than 25 percent in Honduras and El Salvador.

In absolute numbers, the majority of the “ninis,” as members of this group are called, live in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, and more than 70 percent of them live in cities.

Between 1992 and 2013, the proportion of ninis declined only marginally, but their absolute numbers increased by 4 million.

The organization warned that this is a “persistent” problem because despite the region’s good economic performance from 2000-2010, with high growth rates and a significant reduction in poverty, the indicator has not fallen significantly.

The study, entitled “Out of School and Out of Work: Risk and Opportunities for Latin America’s Ninis,” shows the negative effects of this situation in the long term “on productivity, reducing salaries and lifetime job opportunities and braking economic growth in general.”

An increase of 1 percent in the number of ninis would mean a decline in incomes by 7 percent ove the next 20 years, according to the World Bank’s calculations.

De Hoyos told EFE that the typical profile of a Latin American nini is “a woman who has not finished high school and lives in a poor or vulnerable urban household.”

The main risk factor for transforming women into ninis is early marriage and teen pregnancy, the study found. EFE

In Costa Rica, the National Institute of Statistics and Census reported grim nini figures for late 2014: 72,000 men and 98,000 women. The ninis make up nearly half of the unemployed population.

As a percentage of the population of Costa Rica, the ninis represent 20 percent, in line with the above-reported statistics by the World Bank. The term nini is derived from “ni estudio, ni trabajo,” which translates to: I don’t work nor go to school.