根据传统的统计数据，韩国的青年失业率似乎相当温和:“只有”9.6%的“活跃”青年劳动力失业，而2011年欧盟27国的失业率为21.4%。青年失业率为8.5%的德国是欧洲国家中极少数超过韩国的国家。但韩国的情况在一个方面不同寻常。从代际风险分担的角度来看，韩国青年失业率是45 ~ 54岁成年人失业率的4.6倍;在德国，这一数字仅为1.7。如果用未就业、未接受教育或培训的青年(NEET)占青年总人口的百分比来衡量失业率，就会出现更多的奇特现象。韩国的啃老族人数在经合组织国家中名列前茅，尤其是接受过高等教育的年轻人。本文对这一难题进行了一些解释:首先，概述了青年失业的主要原因和一般政策干预;由于这一问题的很大一部分是结构性的，本文简要回顾了为避免对失业青年造成长期创伤而可能采取的立即措施;欧洲和美国之间的差异特别表明了失业保险等自动稳定器的重要性，以减轻衰退时期年轻人不利的风险分担压力。 The main part is devoted to possible lessons for Korea from Europe, in particular from Germany. Dual education and vocational training systems that emphasise middle level and market oriented skills are identified as institutional device both for fairer intergenerational risk sharing as well as for a smoother transition from school to work. In its outlook, the paper comes back to the puzzle of highly and academically inflated youth unemployment by referring to a possible hidden cause in Korea: A strong insurance motive might explain the overall striving for an academic degree inducing not only wasteful congestion at labour market entries but also unfair job allocation through credentialism.