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4 Work's Effects on Children and Adolescents
Pages 110-140

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From page 110...
... To answer these questions requires an understanding of the nature of adolescent development in modern society. Most experts agree that adolescence occupies a crucial role in contemporary human development for several interrelated reasons.
From page 111...
... Work experience, like any other experience, can be evaluated in terms of the degree to which, and the ways in which, it helps young people become personally, interpersonally, and socially mature. The development of these psychosocial competencies cannot be viewed outside the broader context in which a young person or a cohort of young people comes of age.
From page 112...
... Nevertheless, about 80 percent of all students work for pay during the school year at some time during their high school years. In addition to these temporal dimensions of work, particular attributes of work experience may assume special importance for youth.
From page 113...
... Data from several well-designed, nationally representative longitudinal surveys are used in many of the studies discussed below. These include the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NESY)
From page 114...
... are also discussed when they complement the national longitudinal studies and when they cover information not available in the national studies. Examples of cross-sectional studies are Monitoring the Future, which surveys a national sample of high school seniors annually, and first-year data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.i Regional studies include the Youth Development Study, which follows a random sample of students who were in the 9th grade in 1988 in St.
From page 115...
... found that the number of hours worked had a statistically positive relationship to absences from school in the ~ 0th grade after controlling for background and demographic variables, school type, curriculum, prior academic performance, prior work experience, and early school behavior and misbehavior especially among those who worked more than 30 hours per week. In the High School and Beyond Survey, which tracked a large representative pane!
From page 116...
... , using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, report that students who have worked the previous year are less likely to quit school between the ages of 17 and 19 than are those who did not work. However, the extent to which youngsters remain in school decreased as the average weekly hours of work rose, after controlling for family background, scholastic aptitude, other background and demographic variables, and previous work experience.
From page 117...
... Although these studies statistically control for many pre-existing differences among students who work at high and low intensity, as noted above, without random assignment of students to various work patterns, it cannot be proved that high-intensity work decreases educational attainment. It is possible that unobserved differences among students are responsible for both their decisions about work intensity and education.
From page 118...
... Some well-designed longitudinal studies report negative effects of employment, or hours of work, on grades (Marsh, 1991; Mortimer and Finch, 1986~. Others show no significant effects (Mihalic and Elliot, 1997; Mortimer and Johnson, 1998; Mortimer et al., 1996; Schoenhals et al., 1977~.
From page 119...
... It may seem paradoxical that working does not have a more consistent effect on academic performance. Two recent studies report that neither employment status nor work intensity influences the amount of time spent doing homework (Mortimer et al., 1996; Schoenhals et al., 1997~.
From page 120...
... gov.) These results must be treated with caution because they are usually based on high school seniors' reports of their post-graduation intentions rather than follow-up surveys and because they seldom include control groups or comparison groups, but they do suggest the reasonable hypotheses that youth apprenticeship and other aspects of schoof-to-work would not reduce the likelihood of high school graduates enrolling in post-secondary education.
From page 121...
... found that Canadian high school graduates who had worked during high school were less likely to be willing to accept "menial" jobs than were those with no work experience. They also found that employment had a positive effect on an economic literacy test (which covered such topics as diminishing returns, opportunity costs, and demand theory)
From page 122...
... Parents of working youth believe that employment promotes a sense of responsibility, time-management skills, and positive work values (Aronson et al., 1996; Phillips and Sandstrom, 1990~. Even though most young workers do not think that they will continue in the same kinds of jobs after they complete their schooling, they may learn behaviors that will prepare them for any future job.
From page 123...
... Steel's (1991) analysis of National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data finds that hours per week of high school employment are positively related to weeks of employment for whites for 2 years foflowing high school; for African Americans and Hispanics, however, the relationships between hours worked and employment after high school were not statistically significant.
From page 124...
... Though most research has focused on investment in work, the quality of the early work experience may also be important for occupational outcomes. For example, the use of skills as an adolescent worker predicts success in the job market during the first 3 years after high school graduation (Stern and Nakata, 1989~.
From page 125...
... reported that time spent with parents was less among employed students than among other students and that it diminished as the hours of work increased (see also C~'reenberger and Steinberg, 1986; Mortimer and Shanahan, 1994~. Steinberg and Dornbusch (1991)
From page 126...
... report no significant effects of adolescents' employment status or intensity on the quality of their relations with their families. An analysis of Youth Development Study data yielded the same conclusion (Mortimer and Shanahan, 1994~.
From page 127...
... In rural settings, adolescents' earnings promoted more sharing of advice between parents and adolescents, and the adolescents' emotional ties with their parents remained stable or improved. In urban settings, earnings were not linked to these positive outcomes.
From page 128...
... , there is little evidence that adolescents' work status or the intensity of their work affects their peer relations either positively or negatively. However, good work experiences those that foster job skills and work involvement are associated with enhanced closeness of peer relations and belief that work confers status in the peer group.
From page 129...
... This undesirable outcome would appear to be more likely as work hours increase. Among high school seniors in the Monitoring the Future studies, the young people who were the most satisfied with their lives after controlling for background factors and educational commitment and success were those employed 6 to 10 hours per week; they were more satisfied than nonworkers and than those who worked more than ~ O hours per week (Bachman and Schulenberg, 1993~.
From page 130...
... In an analysis of data from the first year of the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health, Resnick and colleagues (1997) found that working more than 20 hours per week during the school year was associated with emotional distress (defined as physical or emotional symptoms of distress as reported by the young people themselves or by their parents)
From page 131...
... In contrast, among those who saw little relationship between present and future jobs, an increase in work intensity was associated with decrements in health and well-being. Thus, work of low quality may interact with long hours to produce negative effects on personal development.
From page 132...
... (1997) found that high work intensity increased the likelihood of delinquent involvement among males who were already at risk for delinquent behavior: That is, the more hours such
From page 133...
... Mihalic and Elliott (1997) , in studying the short-term effects of work hours on the use of alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs among hi- to 17-year-ofUs from 1976 through 1980, statistically controlled for sex, age, parental socioeconomic status, place of residence (urban/suburban, rural)
From page 134...
... MINORITY AND DISADVANTAGED YOUTH Two high school students working side by side in the same establishment may have very different work experiences. The job may represent a short-term means of earning spending money for the college-bound middle-cIass student, but it may be the beginning of a
From page 135...
... examined the relationships between youth labor force participation and individual, family, and local labor market factors, using 1980 public-use census data. They found that the likelihood of adolescent employment increased with family income up to $54,999 in 1980 dollars, when employment levels dropped.
From page 136...
... The speech, dress, and manners that serve young people well in their homes and neighborhoods may disqualify them from desirable jobs. Thus, obtaining work experience may be more important for disadvantaged youth than for relatively advantaged youth.
From page 137...
... It is especially critical that disadvantaged youth have opportunities to take leadership positions, not only to serve as subordinates (Hamilton and Claus, 1981~. Poor, urban adolescents are also more
From page 138...
... , the intensity of their work, anc! the quality of their work experience.
From page 139...
... Of concern, however, is that the apparent short-term economic advantages of work experiences during high school are associated with some decrease in overall educational attainment. And, overall educational attainment has been found to be a strong predictor of long-term economic well-being (Angrist and Krueger, 1991; Bureau of the Census, 1993; DiPrete and McManus, 1996~.
From page 140...
... Dimensions of work quality, including skill utilization and learning, relations with supervisors, and job-related stressors, have been found to have wide-ranging consequences for personal and vocational development, as well as for adolescents' relationships with parents and peers. In conclusion, the scientific evidence raises fundamental questions about the intensity of work currently permitted for young neonIe as well as the quality of the jobs that are available to them.


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