More than one in four young Europeans aged between 15 and 29 were working and studying at the same time in 2024, according to the latest Eurostat figures.
This situation was most common in the Netherlands (74.3%), Denmark (56.4%) and Germany (45.8%).
By contrast, Romania (2.4%), Greece (6%) and Croatia (6.4%) reported the lowest shares among EU countries.
The main driver for working alongside one’s studies is financial concerns, but experts say that students’ motivations can differ depending on where they’re from and which sector they’re in.
“Some students are motivated primarily by financial considerations, and others use employment or unpaid internships to gain work experience and enhance their employability,” Madeline Nightingale, researcher leader at non-profit research organisation RAND Europe, told Europe in Motion.
While financial necessity is “likely to vary across EU member states according to student finance arrangements, the latter is more common in certain sectors, such as law, finance and the creative industries”, according to Nightingale.
“This is also likely to vary according to socio-economic background since for some students, paid work is an economic necessity,” she said.
In addition, students’ engagement in paid work will also be influenced by wider labour market trends. For instance, a Dutch study claimed that in the Netherlands, the increase in paid work for students was associated with the growth in flexible employment practices.
Nevertheless, the majority of young Europeans don’t work while they study, with more than seven in 10 young people remaining outside the labour force while pursuing higher education, according to Eurostat.
Meanwhile, 3.2% were unemployed but actively looking for a job.
The highest shares of unemployed young people in formal education were recorded in Sweden (14.1%), Finland (10%) and Denmark (9.6%).
On the other hand, in Romania (0.6%), Croatia, Czechia and Hungary (each 0.8%), less than 1% of young people were seeking employment.
Why are there different rates between men and women?
Among women aged 15 to 19, 74.4% were out of the labour market, compared with 70.4% of men of the same age.
As they grow older and reach the age group between 20 and 24 years, the proportion outside the labour force drops to 30.9% for women and 24.8% for men.
This indicates greater integration into the labour market alongside educational activities, Eurostat noted.
In this age group, the percentage of young people employed while studying was 19.6% for women and 17% for men.
Additionally, among young people aged 25 to 29 years, employment reached 62% for women and 71.9% for men. Here, the share of women outside the labour force and not in formal education (16.2%) was higher than that of men (6.9%).
This may suggest that they prefer to focus on education during their younger years.
Data also shows that women tend to enrol more in formal education than men.
However, when not in education, they are less likely to be employed or seeking employment, as reflected by lower employment rates and higher levels of inactivity compared with men.
