Leaving school early: a mediation analysis linking adolescent mental health disorders to early adult outcomes

Anna Adamecz (), John Jerrim () and Ágnes Szabó-Morvai ()
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Anna Adamecz: UCL Social Research Institute, University College London; ELTE Centre for Economic and Regional Studies
John Jerrim: UCL Social Research Institute, University College London
Ágnes Szabó-Morvai: ELTE Centre for Economic and Regional Studies; University of Debrecen, Faculty of Economics and Business

No 2609, KRTK-KTI WORKING PAPERS from Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies

Abstract: This paper examines the role of dropping out of school in the association between adolescent mental health disorders (MHDs) and subsequent early-life outcomes. Utilising an administrative panel dataset that links education, health, and employment records for half of the Hungarian school population, we track the life outcomes of a school cohort until age 22. Our findings indicate that adolescents diagnosed with an MHD between the ages of 14 and 16 are 5.8 percentage points (or 34%) more likely to drop out of secondary school compared to their peers, even after controlling for social background factors and educational performance. Furthermore, MHDs are associated with poorer early-life outcomes by age 22, including reduced employment rates, an increased likelihood of being neither in education nor employment, lower wages, and higher probabilities of motherhood, abortions, sexually transmitted diseases, and substance abuse. On average, approximately a third of these negative associations are mediated through school dropout but there are substantial differences across these outcomes. We conclude that educational policies aimed at facilitating the school-to-life transition should simultaneously address mental health disorders and dropout prevention.

Keywords: adolescent mental health; school dropout; school-to-work transition; NEET; abortion; substance abuse; sexually transmitted diseases; causal mediation analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I29 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-neu
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