Bullying victimization and its life-course shadows: evidence from China

Adolescent bullying victimization and its associations with short- and long-term educational and psychological outcomes in China have been rarely studied. Utilizing a 15-year longitudinal dataset, we adopt a life-course perspective to examine how adolescent bullying victimization is linked to educational and psychological outcomes in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood in China. The results support the academic protection hypothesis, i.e., prior academic achievement protects against subsequent bullying victimization. Adolescent bullying victimization has significant, adverse implications for educational achievement and behavioral problems in the short term. In the long term, as adolescents transition into young adulthood, the adverse implications of bullying victimization persist only for educational attainment, not for adulthood self-esteem and depression in general. Additionally, there are notable gender differences in the implications of adolescent bullying victimization. In the short term, adolescent bullying victimization is negatively associated with educational achievement only for girls. In the long term, girls are more likely to experience adverse psychological outcomes, such as higher levels of adulthood depression, from prior bullying victimization, while boys are more prone to have lower educational attainment due to adolescent bullying victimization.