Early school leavers in their later (adult) life and social consequences
Thursday 23 July 2015, by
ESL holds many far-reaching effects for an individual’s overall quality of life: lower employability, income and savings, inferior (public) health status, less risk aversion and increased criminality, less supportive social capital, and reduced lifetime satisfaction. To successfully tackle ESL, it is therefore crucial for all actors involved to be aware of the consequences and help combat ESL on time.
This article explains the long-term effects of ESL on different aspects of an individual’s personal and social life. In defining the consequences of ESL, we start by examining Psacharopoulos’ (2007) framework of ESL consequences and cost estimation, where the author refers to the private, social and fiscal impacts of ESL. Since here we are mainly interested in those consequences with the greatest impact on an individual’s personal life (personal consequences) and the individual’s social functioning (social consequences), in the article we describe: a) private far-reaching consequences that, according to the author, refer to a higher incidence and duration of unemployment, lower initial and lifetime earnings, inferior health status (e.g. risk of psychological and somatic health problems), less risk aversion (e.g. drug use, criminal behaviour), reduced lifelong-learning participation, a lower quality of social capital (poorer and unsupportive social ties) and lower overall lifetime satisfaction; and b) social consequences that refer to increased criminality, lower positive spill-over effect of co-workers, lower positive intergenerational effects and inferior public health assistance access. A review of different studies that discussed these far-reaching private and social consequences of ESL (e.g. Crum et al., 1998; Hawkins et al., 1992; Henry et al., 1999; Jarjoura, 1993; Lamb, 1994; Silbereisen et al., 1995) on an individual’s overall well-being throughout their life confirmed these effects. We conclude it is therefore vital for different actors to be aware of the long-term consequences of ESL and that timely systematic intervention and compensation practices are essential. As part of this, it is very important to be aware of the individual’s reasons for ESL since in this way we can identify whether ESLrs are more likely to form a new stable identity or are at a greater risk of developing and intensifying maladaptive behaviours.
[1] The prevailing understanding in modern society that ESL is a major cause of high unemployment is challenged by some authors (e.g. Ross & Leathwood, 2013; De Witte et al., 2013; Huart, 2013) who argue that keeping students in school will not resolve the problem of (youth) unemployment.
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