Tracking pupils into adulthood: selective schools and long-term well-being in the 1958 British cohort

We explore the effect of tracking pupils by ability into different secondary schools on adult health, well-being and labour outcomes in England. We address selection bias by balancing individual pre-treatment characteristics via entropy matching, followed by parametric regressions estimated via OLS and IV approaches. Ability tracking does not affect long-term health and well-being, while it marginally raises hourly wages for low-ability pupils, compared to a mixed-ability system. Cognitive and non-cognitive abilities measured prior to secondary school are more significant and positive predictors of adult outcomes. Particularly, non-cognitive skills may have a protective role for adult health for lower cognitive ability children.