What happens after you drop out? : Work, school re-entry, and transition to adulthood among early school leavers

We examine the work history and transition to adulthood among early school leavers. We use retrospective data from a sub-sample of young adults (20-34) residing in Greater Jakarta who ever dropped out of school at age 16 or below (N=799). It is commonly assumed that early school leavers would spend the rest of their formative years working as a child labourer. However, our sequence analysis of the work and education history of early school leavers reveals this is not always the case. Less than a quarter of early school leavers worked in the immediate year following school exit. In contrast, about 30 per cent spent neither worked nor studied between the ages 12-18. Upon identifying that that a small number of respondents eventually managed to return to school, we found that father’s education and sex were the main predictors of school re-entry. Among those with early work experience, the top three occupations were workers in the processing/manufacturing industry, domestic servants/babysitters, and as informal traders. Finally, we found that early school leavers progressed faster into leaving parental home, marriage and parenthood relative to those who left school at ages 17-19.