The Great Recession and recent employment trends among secondary students in the United States

Adolescent employment has been a subject of great interest in the past three decades (see reviews by Mortimer, 2010; Staff, Messersmith, & Schulenberg, 2009; Staff, Mont’Alvao, & Mortimer, forthcoming). Scholars, educators, and policy makers alike have been interested in which teenagers are working for pay, how much of their time is allocated to it, and whether employment, especially among secondary students who are working long hours during the school year, has important short- and long-term consequences for young people’s school achievement and social development. As such, it is important to understand whether the Great Recession in the United States affected the employment opportunities and experiences of middle and high school students. Officially spanning from December 2007 to June 2009 in the United States, the Great Recession was marked by a countrywide decline in economic activity, increased rates of job loss and long-term unemployment, and reductions in individual wealth and household income, with far reaching effects (Garson, 2013; Grusky, Western, & Wimer, 2011; Peck, 2012). The national unemployment rate among those 16 years of age or older, for instance, doubled from 5% to 10%, peaking in October 2009 despite the recession’s official end (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012). It has remained relatively high, dropping below 8% for the first time in September 2012. Unemployment rates are highest for the youngest workers (i.e., 16 to 19 year olds) and do not include youth who do not meet the official definition of unemployment but who may want to work if they could (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013). Early employment experiences play an important role in the life course (Mortimer, 2003). By taking the long view of lives and how they are structured, scholars have shown how both the nature and amount of work change with age (Mortimer, 2003; Safron, Schulenberg, & Bachman, 2001; Perreira, Harris, & Lee, 2007; Steinberg & Cauffman, 1995), as well as how early work experiences portend later trajectories of attainment and well-being (Bachman et al., 2011; Carr, Wright & Brody, 1996; Mortimer & Staff, 2004; Staff & Mortimer, 2007). The life course is fundamentally structured in time and space, and the place of employment among secondary students may be changing. Students today may be less likely to work than in previous cohorts due to broad shifts in labor supply (e.g., changing high school graduation requirements may have made it harder for teenagers to combine school and work, and decrease their preferences to do so; see Smith, 2011, for a review) or labor demand (employers may prefer adult workers who are increasingly competing for what once were considered “teenage” jobs). It is likely that rates of employment among American secondary students were affected by the Great Recession, though it is also the case that teenage employment was on the decline before the recession hit (Smith, 2011; Staff et al., forthcoming). Thus, longer-term changes in the labor market, in education, and other factors are likely also involved. The decision to enter the workforce is influenced by the young person’s orientations and goals, so perhaps youth nowadays have less desire to work due to the increasing emphasis placed on attending and completing college (Goyette, 2008; Johnson & Reynolds, 2013; Reynolds et al., 2006). Furthermore, wanting and finding a job in the early life course, just as in older ages, is influenced by sociodemographic background. These characteristics are also likely to affect employers’ selection among job seekers. As such, it is important to assess how gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic background may shape overall trends in teenage employment while attending secondary school. In this article, we use data from the ongoing Monitoring the Future (MTF) study to examine recent trends in employment among middle and high school students in the United States, charting change during the Great Recession and its aftermath. This ongoing project continues to collect data on large (approximately 17,000 students per grade), nationally representative samples of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders each year (Johnston, O’Malley, Bachman, & Schulenberg 2013). Our use of the MTF allows us to examine whether rates of employment are changing in similar ways by gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic background. In addition, we look at changes in educational goals and the types of work most in decline for insight into why employment among secondary students is diminishing, especially during the Great Recession.