CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

As longitudinal research on emerging adulthood refers almost exclusively to North American and European samples, it is interesting to present here some findings on emerging adults living in Argentina. This paper we intend to explore the following questions: First, whether emerging adults who dropped out from secondary school show higher levels of internalizing problems (depression, anxiety, lower self-esteem) compared to the group with higher educational attainment at ages 19 and 23, above and beyond the effects of gender, family-of-origin socioeconomic status and cohabitation or marriage with a romantic partner. Second, whether those who dropped out differ in relevant self-concept domains from those with higher educational attainment at age 23. To address these questions we will examine data from a longitudinal study that was designed to explore the broad picture of Argentinean young people socio-emotional development from adolescence to emerging adulthood. Emerging adults who did not finish secondary school showed higher levels of internalizing problems compared to the group with higher educational attainment, above and beyond the effects of relevant covariates, we found that at the beginning of emerging adulthood neither group differed in their level of emotional problems. Nevertheless, four years later -at average age 23- dropouts showed lower self-esteem and higher depression and anxiety symptoms than the other group, above and beyond gender, family-of-origin socioeconomic status and cohabitation or marriage with a romantic partner. With respect to the second question, dropouts were less satisfied in self-concept domains, not only clearly related to academic achievement as intellectual ability and job competence, but also in other aspects of competence, like social acceptability and morality.

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