BACKGROUND The high incidence of young people dropping out of school prior to completing secondary schooling remains a nationwide problem in Indonesia. While it is commonly assumed that early school-leavers will become child workers, in fact little is known about their transition to adulthood. OBJECTIVE Using retrospective data from a sample of 799 young adults (ages 20–34) in Greater Jakarta who dropped out of school by age 16, this paper investigates their patterns of activity and employment in the adolescent years following their exit from the school system, the timing and patterns of reaching various markers of adulthood, and their current life situations. RESULTS Less than a quarter of early school-leavers worked in the immediate year following school exit. Instead about 30% neither worked nor studied between the ages of 12–18. The likelihood of experiencing idleness was highest at age 13 and was relatively higher for females than males. Among those with early work experience the majority worked in the manufacturing industry, as domestic servants, or as informal traders. Early school-leavers left their parental home, married, and became parents at a younger age compared to those who left school at ages 17–19.