The Psychological Effects of Unemployment and Unsatisfactory Employment on Young Adults: Findings from a 10-Year Longitudinal Study

The purpose of the present study was to extend the external validity of an earlier longitudinal study of school leavers by including participants from a representative sample of secondary schools. Questionnaires were administered annually to a sample of South Australian school leavers over a 10-year period. At Time 1 participants were in the last compulsory year of high school aged around 15 years and at Time 10 they were aged around 25 years. Results confirmed those from an earlier longitudinal study showing that the transition from school to satisfactory employment was associated with significant improvements in psychological well-being, whereas transition from school to unemployment or unsatisfactory employment showed no change in psychological well-being. The current findings extended the external validity of the earlier study because whereas participants in the earlier study were sampled from co-educational metropolitan public high schools, the current study included participants from every kind of high school: single sex as well as co-educational, rural as well as metropolitan, and private as well as public.