WHat are important quotes from the text? Introduction
The ecological theory of human development has mixed
findings which suggest adolescent work has both negative and positive impacts on adolescent development
(Zimmer-Gembeck & Mortimer, 2006). The mixed findings may partially be due to the research ignoring an
important source of work context heterogeneity which
has theoretical reasons for being quite different—the
family firm. Working in a family firm at a young age, as
opposed to a nonfamily firm, likely influences adolescent development differently. This is a critical theoretical gap in the literature as the prevalence of family firms
around the globe, including those of developed countries (Arregle, Hitt, Sirmon, & Very, 2007; La Porta,
Lopez-de-Silanes, & Shleifer, 1999), indicates that a
large number of parents have the option of hiring their
own children, especially their own adolescents in their
own business.
One important decision these parents make is whether
to involve the next generation early on in the family
business. Family legacy has a significant influence on
the decision-making process of family firms (Hammond,
Pearson, & Holt, 2016) such that the choosing and
developing of a successor, while considering parent–
child relationship quality, is one of the most important
decisions that family business owners make (Cater &
Justis, 2009). Care for the next generation prompts many
family owners to hire their adolescents into the business.
In developed countries, many adolescents end up working in their family firms at a young age. For example,
according to nationally representative data gathered
from the Youth in Transition Survey (Statistics Canada,
2012), 45% of Canadian adolescents who were 15 years
old as of December 1999 reported having worked in
their family business at one point. An important
question thus emerges about the consequences of working in the family business on adolescents.With such a high percentage of adolescents in society having worked in a family firm, and given adolescence is a critical stage in developing one’s identity
(Mortimer, 2003; Mortimer, Lam, & Lee, 2014), we
must better understand the implications of adolescents
working in their family business on the adolescent’s
psychological well-being and relationship with parents.
There has been a debate in the family studies literature
regarding the impact of general work on adolescent
development and relationships with parents. While
some argue this influence is harmful (Greenberger &
Steinberg, 1986) noting that this kind of work may lead
to stress and a lower level of family commitment
(Steinberg, Grennberger, Ruggiero, Garduque, & Vaux,
1982), others posit positive outcomes, such as a greater
sense of independence (Mortimer & Shanahan, 1994).
Recently, the literature has started to recognize the heterogeneity of outcomes among adolescents on the transition into the working world. Vuolo, Mortimer, and
Staff (2014) recently started to disentangle these trajectories in terms of work identity outcomes categorizing
the outcomes into “successful” and “floundering” based
on a variety of characteristics including work experiences during transitional years. Mortimer and her colleagues (Mortimer, 2003; Mortimer, Kim, Staff, &
Vuolo, 2016) start to introduce psychological outcomes
such as self-efficacy, finding that “high-quality”
employment is linked to increased self-efficacy during
these transitional years. The impact on broader psychological well-being and the relationship with parents still
needs further disentanglement. Additionally, these studies have been limited to general business work placements, and the dynamics are likely to differ when
working with family members due to the inherent
nature of the business family overlap. Working with
family members is likely to affect the quality of the
work experience dramatically, quite possibly providing
higher quality employment experiences overall for
adolescents.
The psychological and relationship impacts of adolescent work become more complex when the work context is the family firm, where familial relationships are
particularly affected due to the overlap of family and
work settings. Empirical evidence in general settings
suggests work has a negative influence on parent–adolescent relationships. One key explanation highlighted
in the family studies literature is that working reduces
the amount of time adolescents spend with their families
(Ashbourne & Daly, 2010). However, in the context of
the family firm, adolescents are able to spend more time
with their parents at work and be exposed to a unique
work environment.
Since the underlying theoretical time overlap assumptions are different in the family business context, we
expect that in the family business context, the impact of
adolescent work may be different than suggested in the
general work context typically used in the family studies
literature. In other words, working in a family business
may be an important source of heterogeneity in the quality of the work experience. This study is the first of its
kind to explore this important relationship and make a
direct comparison between adolescents who work for
nonfamily firms with those who work in their family
business. The specific research question we explore in
this article centers on the consequences of adolescents
working in their family business. We focus our attention
on how working in this context influences adolescent
development and the parent–child relationship differently. Finally, for those children who are likely to find
themselves working in their family-owned firm, we
empirically test the best strategy for improving psychological and family outcomes for adolescents.
We construct the article as follows. First, drawing on
ecological theories of human development, we briefly
theorize about the consequences of an adolescent working along with their parents on two important outcomes:
parent–adolescent relationships and adolescent wellbeing. We then use the National Longitudinal Survey of
Children and Youth (NLSCY), a unique Canadian longitudinal data set well suited to shedding light on this
question. To ensure the robustness of our findings, we
use different operationalizations of our primary variables of interest and, due to the mixed definitions of
family business in the literature, define a variety of
business family risk sets. Finally, we discuss our findings and the managerial implications for family firm
managers.
The Consequences of Adolescents
Working in Their Family Business
The ecological theory of human development
(Bronfenbrenner, 1979) helps understand the spillover
between work and family settings and how experience
in one setting influences the experience in another setting. The theory, specifically, delineates different types
of systems that shape individual development. The lowest level is the micro system in which individuals function in different settings such as school, family, and
work. The micro system is concerned with how ties
developed in these settings shape the individual and ultimately his or her experience. The next system is the
meso system in which the settings found in the micro
system are assumed to interact with each other. Their
interactions make it possible for relationships formed in
one setting to influence the individual’s experience in
other settings (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).
These settings become more interconnected within
the context of family firms. Family businesses have
unique characteristics that entail both family and business life and require more nuanced theorizing to study
(Chua, Chrisman, & Steier, 2003; Gersick, Lansberg,
Desjardins, & Dunn, 1999; Sirmon & Hitt, 2003). They
possess distinct traits from nonfamily firms such as the
influence of family relations on simultaneous roles and
shared identity (Tagiuri & Davis, 1996). This overlap of
both roles and identity creates a need to modify broader
theory when considering such contexts.
The decision-making process of parents as the owners and managers of family firms to a significant extent
is shaped by their intention and preference in perpetuation of their family dynasty (e.g., Jaffe & Lane, 2004;
Lambrecht, 2005) and keeping family legacy (Hammond
et al., 2016). Families have a varying degree of preference for different types of legacy—biological, material,
and social. All these types of family legacy could serve
as a source of motivation for involving the next generation in the business. However, given those families with
a higher biological legacy orientation have a preference
for passing the business through the family’s bloodline,
they are more likely to consider employing their adolescents in the business. Prior studies suggest that concerns
for keeping biological legacy influence how leaders of
family firms make strategic decisions (e.g., Gersick,
Davis, Hampton, & Lansberg, 1997; Hammond et al.,
2016).
We, therefore, deduce that the business decision to
hire familial adolescents implies parents and adolescents spending more time with each other as well as adolescents working in a unique environment. In the family
business context, parents as managers and owners pay
attention to providing adolescents with a different type
of working experience than their peers would receive
from working for strangers. As Hammond et al. (2016)
noted, “parental altruism, which represents a trait linking the parents’ welfare to their children’s welfare, is
grounded in the notion that parents view their children
as an extension of themselves” (p. 1216). Under such
context, as family business owners, while spending
more time with their children, parents also have incentive to provide their adolescents a unique working environment that in turn affects the adolescent’s relationship
with them as well as the adolescent’s psychological
well-being.
Parent–Adolescent Relationship
Adolescence is a critical stage in one’s life (Hall, 1904)
and the work experience during this phase conveys a
developmental importance both in the short and long run
(Mortimer, 2010). An important consequence of work is
the mark it leaves on the type of relationship one develops with her parents. Family studies researchers have
studied this relationships by making an underlying
assumption that adolescent work takes time away from
family time (e.g., Ashbourne & Daly, 2010; Steinberg &
Dornbusch, 1991). In fact, many of the studies in the
literature highlight the importance of the role time plays
in the parent–child relationship.
Time is a tool families use to craft and shape family
ties (Gillis, 1996). In families where both parents and
children work, family members may be forced to sacrifice spending time with each other to meet other
demands arising from work obligations, which may give
rise to work–family conflict for both parents and adolescents. The value of time becomes even greater for adolescents, compared with younger children, as they have
less access to family time due to their external activities
such as staying out late with friends and working at jobs
(Larson, Richards, Moneta, Holmbeck, & Duckett,
1996).
While these findings are not conclusive, some studies
suggest that reducing the amount of time family members spend with one another may weaken family ties
(e.g., Mortimer & Shanahan, 1994; Steinberg &
Dornbusch, 1991). The family–work literature also posits that family and work domains influence each other.
While empirical evidence supports the notion that the
number of work hours is negatively related to work–
family balance (Valcour, 2007), it is driven by the tradeoff between working and spending time at home that
causes distress to individuals rather than the absolute
number of working hours (Barnett & Gareis, 2000).
Furthermore, to the extent to which work interferes with
family, the family provides less emotional support
(Adams, King, & King, 1996)The reduction of time adolescents spend with their
families, not surprisingly, is highlighted as one explanation for more negative outcomes associated with adolescents working (Ashbourne & Daly, 2010). These studies,
however, do not take into account the nature of the relationship of the employer with the adolescents. While
many of these studies highlight the importance of the
role time plays in the parent–child relationship, they do
not differentiate between who the adolescents are spending time with at work—a stranger or a relative. In family
firms, spending time at work or with family is not mutually exclusive. We therefore expect that in the family
firm context, the impact of working on adolescent
behaviors may be different than currently suggested in
the family studies literature.
Within the context of family firms, the involvement
of adolescents in the business carries its own weight.
Family businesses are viewed by many family members
as a form of collective wealth that provides utility to the
members and while contributing to it is usually encouraged, disengagement from it may be frowned on for
both financial and emotional reasons (Eckrich &
Loughead, 1996). Because family members view working together and spending time together as advantageous
to running a family firm (Cole, 2000), they may be disappointed when some members choose not to engage
fully in the firm. Moreover, family firms count on the
human capital represented by their members; and given
that the size of families is shrinking, these resources
have become more valuable (Aldrich & Cliff, 2003).
Those family members who do not facilitate running the
business may damage their relationships with prominent
family members, in this case their father and mother.
Part of this unique work experience is that the nature
of work contribution also differs for adolescents who
work in their family firms than those who work for other
people. Those who work for their family firms directly
contribute to their family business and hence their relationship with their parents may be more directly and
positively influenced. The work setting also allows adolescents to establish new types of ties, in addition to
familial ones. Not only can they learn more about their
family firm and gain appreciation for the work their
family puts into the business they might be able to better
express themselves in new dimensions (Ward, 2004).
Finally, adolescents who work in their family firms
are exposed to unique work experiences that shape them
differently than their counterparts. For example, one
study showed that those who work in their family
business are more likely in the future to enjoy richer
career networking and select themselves into organizations with more fitting characteristics than other adolescents who work for a nonfamily member (Houshmand,
Seidel, & Ma, 2014). The experience in the work role
could spill over to the family role through both the affective and instrumental paths which makes the family role
more positive or negative depending on the experience
(Greenhaus & Powell, 2006). Consequently, we expect a
richer work experience and a positive working relationship between parents and adolescents at work to favorably influence general parent–adolescent relationships.
Spending time with family members coupled with the
other reasons discussed previously such as establishing
new types of connections, finding new avenues to
express themselves, and contributing to the family business all suggest that adolescents develop better relationships with their parents when they work consistently in
their family firms.
Hypothesis 1: Adolescents who have year-round
involvement in their family firms report a better relationship with their parents than all other adolescents.
Psychological Well-Being
Work that is dissatisfying or stressful can impair the psychological well-being of adolescents. Stress and depression in the workplace is often the result of feeling
responsible for outcomes beyond one’s control
(Shanahan, Finch, Mortimer, & Ryu, 1991). Work that
interests and challenges the worker can lead to positive
psychological outcomes. For example, boys reported a
greater sense of well-being when assigned interesting
and complex work; girls reported greater self-esteem
and well-being when they perceived school and work
settings to be mutually supportive (Mortimer, Finch,
Shanahan, & Ryu, 1992).
Parents are altruistic toward their children and family
members of a family business also display altruistic
behavior toward each other (Schulze, Lubatkin, & Dino,
2003). Families, therefore, have incentives to provide
positive and developmental working conditions for their
own children. To keep family and family firm legacy,
parents groom the next generation as their business successors (e.g., Hammond et al., 2016). We thus argue that
in family firms, adolescents are more likely to have
access to developmental work assignments than in situations where they work for strangers. They are also more likely to receive support from other settings such as
school and family for the work they are doing at their
family firms.
A study of children growing up in the Great
Depression concluded that those who helped their financially troubled families by either working within or outside the home had a higher level of self-confidence than
those who did not have the same opportunity (Elder &
Rockwell, 1979). In the same vein, we predict that due
to the better working conditions and the ability to financially help their family, those adolescents who have
year-round involvement in their family firms develop
greater psychological well-being.
Taking into account the role time plays, compared
with their younger siblings, adolescents have fewer
opportunities to spend time with their family and may
also face work–family conflict due to their scarcity of
time; which becomes divided among school, friends,
work, and family (Larson et al., 1996). Higher level of
work–family conflict is positively associated with psychological distress and depression for adults (Frone,
2000; Hammer, Neal, Newsom, Brockwood, & Colton,
2005). Similarly, adolescents facing time constraints
and higher levels of work–family conflict may experience lower psychological well-being. Working adolescents in family firms, however, have more opportunities
to spend time with their families than their counterparts.
They, additionally, have more spare time to allocate to
other settings such as social and school. Therefore, these
adolescents are better able to handle environmental
demands and experience less distress.
When parents hire their adolescents into the business,
they provide a unique work environment to adolescents.
The unique work environment stems from the familial
ties these young workers have with their employers
(Houshmand et al., 2014) who are more likely to encourage the youngsters to engage in more interesting and
complex tasks than other potential employers at odd
jobs elsewhere. This positive experience in the work
role could spill over to other settings (Greenhaus &
Powell, 2006). Moreover, while all adolescents are
pulled by many external forces in different directions,
those who work in their family firms are more likely
able to manage their family time more efficiently by
having the opportunity to spend time with family at
work. Based on this logic, we argue that adolescents
who have year-round involvement, defined as both during the school year and summer, in their family firms
have higher psychological well-being than their peers.
Hypothesis 2: Adolescents who have year-round
involvement in their family firms report higher psychological well-being than all other adolescents.
Method
Data and Sample
We identified a longitudinal data set well suited to
exploring our questions called the NLSCY. The NLSCY
was collected by Statistics Canada and Human Resources
and Skills Development Canada. We used the longitudinal weights provided by Statistics Canada to account for
attrition between cycles, which ensures the models are
representative of the targeted population. As recommended by Statistics Canada, we conducted Stata BRR
(balanced repeated replication) bootstrapping for all of
our models. Employing this method helps ensure that
our sample represents the target population and allows
us to draw more generalizable conclusions from the
results.
The NLSCY focuses on child growth development
from an ecological perspective. According to NLSCY
user guides (e.g., Statistics Canada, 2010), survey content including subject areas, priorities, and survey questions were determined by (a) the NLSCY expert advisory
group, which consists of researchers in the area of child
development and the social sciences, (b) federal departments, and © representatives responsible for child
development programs in the provinces and territories.
As a result, several prevalidated scales were collected;
and we predict two in our current study (Marsh &
O’Neill, 1984; Radloff, 1977).
For the purpose of this study, we used NLSCY data
spanning 8 years, from when our subset of adolescents,
representing over 570,000 Canadians who were 8 to 9
years old in 1994-1995 to when they were 16 to 17 years
old in 2002-2003. In this study, we tested our theory
using our primary independent variables of interest
when adolescents were 14 to 15 years old to predict outcomes in later years, that is, when they were 16 to 17
years old. We also used various control variables from as
early as ages 8 to 9, as detailed below.
Measures
Dependent Variables. Our questions lead to two sets of
dependent variables for this study. We theorized that
adolescents who have year-round involvement in their family firms have a better relationship with their parents
and have higher psychological well-being than all other
adolescents. For robustness, we operationalized these
constructs in multiple ways as follows.
General relationship with parent(s). We used a number
of measures to capture the parent–adolescent relationship construct from different perspectives: the adolescents’ perception of how much parental affection they
receive, how much the adolescents feel their parent(s)
understand them, and the overall adolescent impression
of their relationship with their parent(s). The questions
pertaining to fathers and mothers were asked separately. Three measures captured adolescents’ perceptions of their relationship with each applicable parent.
The questions were phrased as follows: (a) Affection—
How much affection do you receive from your (mother/
father)? (b) Understanding—How well do you feel
that your (mother/father) understands you? © Overall
Relationship—Overall, how would you describe your
relationship with your (mother/father)? The affection,
understanding, and overall relationship variables were
each coded with three ordered outcomes: 1 for very little/not at all, 2 for some and 3 for a great deal.
We used a latent construct approach to measure parent–adolescent relationship. First, we created a general
measure for relationship with father and a general measure for relationship with mother. Cronbach’s alpha for
the father measures are .85 and .84 when adolescents are
14 to 15 years old and 16 to 17 years old, respectively.
For the mother measures, they are .80 and .81. Although
these measures originate from the NLSCY, the internal
consistency of the scale is high. The measures were
determined by domain experts and continue to be
adopted in research regarding relations with parents
(e.g., Myers, 2005) as well as caregivers (e.g., Flynn,
Robitaille, & Ghazal, 2006). Furthermore, these studies
exhibit similarly high levels of scale reliability. Our
approach to this variable is similar to Bushnik’s (2005)
article examining youth depressive symptoms and
changes in relationships with parents and peers in that
we use the same three parent measures.1
However, we
then combined the measures as a single broader construct of overall relationship with parents by averaging
all valid parent–adolescent relationship components
(i.e., three components for single-parent families and six
components otherwise). As a robustness check, we
found that results using the broader construct were consistent with the separate measures for father and mother,2
and as such present the results using this broad latent
construct for our sample measured both when adolescents are at ages 14 to 15 (T1) and again at the ages 16
to 17 cycle (T2).
Psychological well-being. To capture adolescent psychological well-being, we used two measures, one
of depression, the other of self-esteem. We measured
depression with a version of the depression scale developed by Radloff (1977) with a Cronbach alpha of .82
based on T2 data (when adolescents were 16 to 17 years
old). The scale sums 12 items, each ranging from 0
(infrequent prevalence) to 3 (frequent prevalence), to
capture occurrence of depression symptoms as indicated by respondents within a 1-week span. The original
depression scale, which comprised 20 questions, is also
known as the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale and continues to be widely used to measure
symptoms of depression. The NLSCY’s reduced 12-item
scale ranges between 0 and 36, with a higher score representing greater presence of depression symptoms.
The full schedule of items is in Appendix A. Statistics
Canada collected the depression scale in T2 (when our
subset of adolescents were 16 to 17 years old), but not
in T1 (when our subset of adolescents were 14 to 15
years old).
Our second measure of psychological well-being is
an index of self-reported self-esteem. Four self-esteem
items were taken from the Marsh Self-Description
Questionnaire (SDQ; Marsh & O’Neill, 1984) with a
Cronbach alpha of .73 based on T1 data. The full-schedule Marsh SDQ measures multiple dimensions pertaining to an individual’s self-concept. We operationalized
self-esteem using items from the SDQ’s General-Self
Scale. The Marsh SDQ, including its underlying dimensions and (re)iterations (e.g., SDQ-I, SDQ-II, SDQ-III,
and reduced versions thereof), are well established and
have been applied broadly. The scale utilizes the sum of
four items, each ranging on a Likert-type scale from 0
(mostly false) to 4 (mostly true), to denote general selfesteem. The scale ranges from 0 to 16, with a higher
score indicating higher self-esteem. The full schedule of
items is in Appendix B. The scale was collected in both
T1 and T2 for our subset of adolescents.
Independent Variables. When adolescents were 14 to 15
years old, they were asked what type of job they had
during the previous summer, and since the beginning of
the school year. Qualifier questions ascertained whether they had held any jobs during those two periods. Later,
questions were designed to narrow down the specific
type of employment. The questions were structured to
elicit yes or no responses. For example, “Last summer,
did you do any work: at your family’s farm or business
(with or without pay)?” or “Since September 1, have
you done any work: at your family’s farm or business
(with or without pay)?” We categorized those respondents who answered “yes” to both the above questions
as year-round family firm workers and distinguished
them from other adolescents. We used this measure for
all of our analyses to compare those adolescents who
work in their family firm on a year-round basis with all
other adolescents. The year-round engagement in the
business, we believe, allows for the development of better relationships with parents as well as developing better psychological well-being.
Control Variables. We controlled for general individual
attributes such as gender, age, and race. Female is a
dichotomous measure of gender, with male respondents
coded as 0 and female respondents coded as 1. Age is a
continuous measure of the respondents’ actual age at the
time of their T1 interview and can differ from their survey age. That is, although the survey age at T1 is 14 to
15 years, the actual range for this variable spanned from
13 to 16 years. Though most respondents were either 14
or 15 years old at T1, interviews were not conducted on
the same day corresponding to the day respondents were
surveyed in the first cycle of the NLSCY (i.e., when they
were 8 or 9 years old). Because respondents are not surveyed on the same day each time, a few will be 1 year
younger or older from their formal survey age. Our third
general individual attribute variable is race. White is a
dichotomous measure of race, with White respondents
coded as 1 and non-White respondents coded as 0.
Number of siblings has been associated with perceived parent–adolescent relationships (Kidwell, 1981)
and research shows that socioeconomic status (SES)
influences children’s health, cognitive, and socioemotional outcomes (Bradley & Corwyn, 2002). As such,
we also included four family-level variables to control
for differences across families—number of siblings,
single-parent family, parent(s) average age, and SES.
All independent and control variables were identified
when adolescents were 14 to 15 years old except for the
SES and single-parent family variables, which were
identified when adolescents were 12 to 13 years old. The
latest cross-sectional SES captured in the survey for our
age group was based on the SES of up to both parents
from when the adolescents were 12 to 13 years old
(Statistics Canada, 2010). Number of siblings was coded
as a count of the number of siblings belonging to a
respondent. The single-parent family variable was also
dummy coded as 1 for families with only one parent,
and 0 for two-parent families. The household SES variable was derived using up to five variables: household
income (in $1000s), years of education (for up to two
parents), and occupational prestige (for up to two parents) using a modified version of the scale developed by
Pineo, Porter, and McRoberts (1977). The SES variable
was only coded for two-parent families that answered at
least 3 of the 5 questions, and for single-parent families
that answered at least two of the three questions posed to
them. Statistics Canada, in their coding of the SES variable, makes a final transformation by standardizing all
components of the SES variable, and taking the mean of
all available components (Statistics Canada, 2002). Two
versions of the SES variable were derived in the NLSCY:
longitudinal SES and cross-sectional SES. The differences between the two are minor; however, the former is
recommended for examining within-household SES
changes, while the latter is suited for between-household
differences in SES (Statistics Canada, 2002). Therefore,
we use the cross-sectional version of the SES variable
during the time that respondents were 12 to 13 years old.
As single-parent households naturally score lower on
the SES scale, Statistics Canada recommends that
researchers control for single-parent households when
using the scale; and we followed this recommendation
(Statistics Canada, 2010). In the same vein, we control
for parent(s) average age because older parents are more
likely to have higher SES (Statistics Canada, 2002).
Additionally, we included a dummy variable for
working in general in our models to tease out the difference in outcomes for those who have work experience.
Those who worked at the ages of 14 to 15 years either
during the summer or/and school year received a score
of 1 on this variable, while those who did not were coded
as 0. All respondents who indicated working for their
family firm for any part of the year were therefore also
coded as 1 along with those who had general work experience. Including this control variable allowed us to differentiate the effect of working in family firm from the
effect of general work. In other words, because we have
variables for family firm work as well as general work,
any family firm work effects can be interpreted as occurring above and beyond that of general work effects. Indeed, the motivation for including this variable is central to our argument that year-round family firm involvement has benefits beyond those associated with working
in general (e.g., Houshmand et al., 2014).
While many family farms are family businesses, they
possess unique characteristics that might be different
than nonfarm family businesses (Astrachan & Shanker,
2003; Dumas, Dupuis, Richer, & St.-Cyr, 1995; Steier,
2001). Hence, we controlled for whether the family firm
is farm family business or nonfarm family business. To
differentiate family farm workers from other types, we
created two dummy variables, one to capture whether at
least one parent worked in agriculture and one to capture
whether the family lived in a rural or urban region. We
observed that both of these groups were more likely to
be employed as year-round family workers than other
adolescents. We therefore included the two dummy variables as control variables in our models.
Finally, we control for a lagged measure of general
relationship with parent(s) from when adolescents were
12 to 13 years old (T0). The coding of this variable is
identical to our first dependent variable, with the distinction that it is coded from an earlier time period and used
as a control for potential selection bias. That is, the likelihood for adolescents with better parent–adolescent
relationships to self-select into the family firm.3
Risk Sets
To rule out alternative explanations of the positive relationship between year-round family firm involvement
and our dependent variables, we analyzed three samples
of data. The first sample examines year-round family
firm involvement compared with all other arrangements.
However, it remains possible that our predicted yearround family firm involvement effects stem from family
firm properties as opposed to actual involvement in the
family firm. An alternative explanation for any significant effects can be attributed to the different properties
associated with growing up in a family business environment. As a result, we used two subsamples of the first
sample. These risk sets help address concerns around
these alternative explanations, by examining adolescents that have the opportunity for—or, are at risk of—
family firm involvement.
In our initial models, we compare adolescents who
have year-round work involvement in their family firm
to all other adolescents by testing the models on a full
population sample representing a population of roughly
500,000 adolescents. In addition to building models of
the full population, as a robustness check to rule out
selection bias explanations and also to unearth interesting distinctions between children of family firms, we
defined two specific additional risk sets to identify those
adolescents in our sample that potentially could have
had an opportunity to work in their family firms. The
first risk set consists of those who reported working for
their family business or farm at the minimum of either in
the summer or during the school year when they were
between 14 and 15 years old. This set represents roughly
115,000 Canadians who were 14 to 15 years old in 2000-
2001. For this set, we compared our independent variable of year-round work involvement which is defined
by working for the family firm in both time periods,
against partial involvement in either fall or summer. By
repeating the same analysis, we conducted using the full
population on this particular risk set, we were able to
tease out the effect of year-round involvement in family
firm from partial involvement.
The second risk set was those who had at least one
parent who was self-employed. Being self-employed is
not equivalent to running a family firm. However, this
risk set serves as a proxy for adolescents who have
access to working along with their parents when their
parents are self-employed. This set represents roughly
120,000 Canadians during the same period. For this
group, we compared year-round family firm work
involvement with everyone else in the risk set.
Results
We used ordinary least squares regression in accordance
with the provided design weights to examine both parts
of our theory (i.e., the effect of year-round family firm
involvement on adolescent relationship with parents,
and the effect of year-round family firm involvement on
adolescent psychological well-being). Ordinary least
squares regression is appropriate because our dependent
variables are continuous, while utilizing Statistics
Canada’s provided design weights allows us to properly
account for attrition and generalize our results to our
population of interest (i.e., Canadians that were aged 8
to 9 years in 1994-1995). The design of the survey is
such that a unique set of weights are provided for each
time period. As a result, our modeling choices are limited and we develop separate models to predict our
dependent variables for each time period. As part of
Statistics Canada’s privacy restrictions, we are not allowed to report the exact sample size or correlations
between raw variables. We followed Statistics Canada
guidelines for researchers utilizing individual-level data
through the secure Research Data Centre program and
provide details on the target population weighted appropriately. For our analysis, the target population covered
approximately 500,000 people. We evaluated the variance inflation factor values of all variables in all models
and found no significant multicollinearity problems
(variance inflation factor < 1.28).
Table 1 presents the full results of the regressions on
general relationship with parents captured when adolescents are 14 to 15 years old (T1), and again when they
are 16 to 17 years old (T1 + 2 years later). The first
model includes only the control variables, whereas the
following model adds the year-round involvement in the
family firm dummy variable. In the subsequent set of
models, which look at our dependent variable in T2, we
similarly start with a model with only control variables,
then add our independent variable of interest. We highlight the year-round involvement in the family firm variable in bold. Tables 2 and 3 present the results for the
risk sets. Table 2 illustrates the findings for those adolescents who had indicated that they had some experience
working in the family firm during that year, whereas
Table 3 depicts those who had at least one self-employed
parent.
As seen in these tables, when adolescents are 14 to 15
years old, year-round involvement in the family firm
generally has a statistically significant positive relationship with adolescents’ general relationship with their
parents. Our risk set analyses in Table 2 show those that
work for their family firm throughout the year report
having a better relationship with parents, compared with
those that work for family during only part of the year.
Similarly, as shown in Table 3, the effects are positive
and significant when looking at the set of respondents
who have at least one self-employed parent showing
those who have year-round involvement in their family
firm experience better relationship with their parents
than those who have a self-employed parent but do not
have year-round work involvement at the family firm.
Two years later, we find a consistent pattern. In
the full population, general parental relationships involvement in their family firm. Looking at the size
of the coefficients, we do observe an increase from
T1 to T2 in all the models of full population and risk
sets. By taking this into account, we infer that while
working in a family firm appears to be a reliable way
to initiate a rich parent–adolescent relationship, the
positive relationships with parents continue to
strengthen into the future. Together, these findings
provide support for Hypothesis 1 that year-round
involvement in the family firm leads to better relationship with parents.
To gain perspective on the psychological outcome
part of our theory, we used two measures: self-esteem
and depression, and found empirical support for each.
Table 4 presents the full results of the regression on
depression. Depression data were collected by Statistics
Canada in T2 when adolescents were 16 to 17 years old.
As such, we show the analysis for T2 when adolescents
were 16 to 17 years old. Self-esteem, on the other hand,
was measured in both T1 and T2. Tables 5 to 7 present
the results on self-esteem for the full sample and risk
sets, respectively.
We find consistent statistically significant effects
for both measures when working year round in a family firm in T1, though for T2 only. There is only a marginally significant (p < .10) effect for working year
round in the family firm in the full population model
predicting self-esteem in T1. Both risk sets predicting
self-esteem in T1 do not have statistically significant
effects. These combined results could suggest that
working in a family firm has positive and proximal
(i.e., during T1) effects on self-esteem independent of
the level of involvement (i.e., year-round or partial);
although the evidence for such an effect is only marginal. Working year round in the family firm shows a
negative relationship with depression, and a positive
relationship with self-esteem, during T2. This pattern
of results for the self-esteem models (significant effect
in T2, lack of a consistent effect in T1) suggests that
there may be a latent effect for working in the family
firm year round at the ages of 14 to 15 years that manifests over time. The results of the models predicting
general relationship with parents, with their larger
effect sizes in T2, also supports the interpretation that
year-round involvement of adolescents in the family firm can establish a gradually manifesting path toward
desirable outcomes including a better relationship
with parents as well as psychological well-being.
Together, these findings provide support for
Hypothesis 2 that year-round involvement in the family firm yields higher psychological well-being.
1. “In developed countries, many adolescents end up working in their family firms at a young age.” - This quote highlights the prevalence of adolescents working in family businesses and sets the stage for the study’s focus on the consequences of this type of work.

2. “The impact on broader psychological well-being and the relationship with parents still needs further disentanglement.” - This quote acknowledges the gaps in the existing literature and emphasizes the need for a deeper understanding of the effects of working in family businesses on adolescents’ well-being and relationships.

3. “These findings provide support for Hypothesis 1 that year-round involvement in the family firm leads to a better relationship with parents.” - This quote showcases one of the key hypotheses of the study and the results that support the positive impact of working in a family firm on parent-adolescent relationships.

4. “Together, these findings provide support for Hypothesis 2 that year-round involvement in the family firm yields higher psychological well-being.” - This quote summarizes the findings that support the hypothesis regarding the positive impact of working in a family firm on adolescents’ psychological well-being.

5. “The ecological theory of human development helps understand the spillover between work and family settings and how experience in one setting influences the experience in another setting.” - This quote introduces the ecological theory of human development and its relevance to the study’s exploration of the impact of working in a family firm on adolescent development.
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