School Failure in Early Adolescence and Status Attainment in Middle Adulthood: A Longitudinal Study

Guided by a life-course perspective and using a longitudinal panel data set collected at three developmental stages (early adolescence, young adulthood, and middle adulthood), structural equation analyses specify how early school failure influences status attainment at midlife. The results demonstrate that years of education completed in early adulthood is not the only mediating pathway. Lower levels of mental health and higher rates of deviant behaviors in early adulthood are additional mediating processes. A modest residual direct effect of school failure in adolescence on status attainment at midlife is interpretable in terms of inherited or acquired cognitive abilities and motivational dispositions manifested in early adolescence.