Around 37% of Pakistanis aged 15-24 were NEET in World Bank poverty-assessment evidence.
Source
World Bank — https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2025/10/17/fragile-gains-enduring-challenges-charting-pakistan-s-path-out-of-poverty. Verified in source set / retroactive normalization pending.
What it proves
Youth bulge without education/skills/jobs can become a demographic burden.
What it does not prove: NEET is a status category, not a measure of joblessness: it folds together young women kept out of work by care and mobility norms, discouraged workers, and those who left school early, so it does not show that 37% are actively seeking jobs. It also covers only ages 15-24, a narrower band than the 15-29 cohort usually invoked in youth-bulge arguments.
Memory hook: 37% → more than a third of 15-24s neither learning nor earning
Rebuts the claim: "Unemployment is only around 7%, so Pakistan's youth are broadly absorbed into work" — the unemployment rate counts only active jobseekers and misses the NEET population entirely.