Dimensions of Adolescent Employment

Work during adolescence, including part-time work during the school year, has been viewed as vocational behavior with mixed effects on other behaviors and attitudes. Using two different samples (West Point cadets and high school seniors who qualified for ROTC membership), we examined possible positive and negative correlates of adolescent work as a function of work dimensions, and both concurrent and subsequent performance criteria. Results indicated that concurrent costs and benefits of adolescent employment may depend on dimensions of work as well as adolescent characteristics. Similarly, adolescent employment was found to be generally related to subsequent work motivation and nonacademic performance. By their senior year in high school, 80% of all adolescents have held part-time or summer jobs (Greenberger & Steinberg, 1986). Additionally, the percentage of working adolescents has increased steadily over the past 40 years (Kablaoui & Pautler, 1991). Although commonplace, the costs and benefits of employment while in high school have been the subject of considerable debate. Those who favor employment emphasize sociostructural and individual benefits, while critics express concern about negative short- and longterm consequences for both the workers and their subsequent employers. Most researchers acknowledge that adolescent employment may indeed have both positive and negative correlates. Thus, adolescent work involves vocational behavior which may influence both vocational and nonvocational outcomes. Our research differs from most previous research by focusing simultaneously on various dimensions of adolescent work along with both concurrent and post-high school implications of such work. We first review claims and findings about this issue. CRITICISMS OF ADOLESCENT EMPLOYMENT Greenberger, Steinberg (1986), their colleagues, and others have reported negative effects of employment on high school grades, as well as other school-associated variables such as homework, classroom involvement, school misconduct, and participation in extramural school activities (Bachman & Schulenberg, 1993; Greenberger & Steinberg, 1986; Mortimer & Finch, 1986; Steinberg & Dornbusch, 1991). Regarding nonacademic variables such as drug and alcohol use, smoking, disruptions in relationships with parents (Ianni, 1989; Manning, 1990; Shanahan, Finch, Mortimer, & Seongryeol, 1991), and sundry"psychosocial development" measures, many researchers have reported no effects or negative outcomes associated with parttime employment. Although a positive orientation toward work tends to correlate with time spent working, critics claim that the often monotonous and unchallenging nature of much teenage work engenders such negative attitudes toward work as materialism, cynicism, and tolerance for unethical practices (Greenberger & Steinberg, 1986). DEFENSE AND ADVOCACY OF ADOLESCENT EMPLOYMENT Some scholars argue that adolescent employment builds character and self-reliance, and is beneficial to all youth, regardless of need or socioeconomic status (Stephens, 1979; Wildavsky, 1989). In addition, the aforementioned findings of negative effects have been contradicted by the work of others, who have reported positive associations between work and salutary outcomes (Barling, Rogers, & Kelloway,1995; D'Amico,1984; Charner and Fraser,1987; Gottfredson,1985; Hotchkiss,1986; Schill, McCartin, & Meyer,1985; Yamoor & Mortimer, 1990), even after controlling for demographic variables and intelligence. Work advocates stress sociostructural benefits and generational and subcultural utility of high school employment, such as the claim by the President's Science Advisory Committee (1974) that near-universal high school attendance has inadvertently"decoupled the generations" by isolating adolescents from the adult work world and retarding adolescents' smoother integration into the adult work world (Hamilton & Crouter, 1980). …