This article examines the role of social capital within families and its interaction with parental socio-economic status in shaping the likelihood of young adults in Germany experiencing episodes of not being in employment, education or training (NEET). Using longitudinal data from the German Family Panel (pairfam), we reconstruct trajectories for the initial 5 years after leaving school that include the occurrence and persistence of NEET episodes. The findings indicate that family social capital, in particular parent–child communication built on trust and feelings of emotional security towards parents, can lower the risk of long-lasting and recurring NEET episodes. Moreover, high levels of family social capital can even out differences in the likelihood of experiencing NEET episodes according to socio-economic background. © 2025 The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
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