The Impact of Employment, Job Quality, and Labor Market Context on Adolescent Problem Behavior

根据1997年全国青年纵向调查的数据，高中时期的就业是普遍存在的。例如，到高中最后一年的5月，整整87%的学生在高中至少工作了一个月，许多有工作的学生工作强度很高，通常每周超过20小时。此外，近四分之一的就业老年人（23%）每周全职工作超过35小时。但追溯到20世纪80年代初的实证研究表明，长时间的工作与入学率相结合，与各种问题行为的增加相关，其中最重要的是犯罪和吸毒。部分基于广泛的工作参与对问题行为的不利影响的研究，国家研究委员会（1998:227）提议将联邦对在校期间青少年工作参与的限制——目前只适用于14岁和15岁——扩大到16岁和17岁。第108届国会提出的《青年劳动者保护法》采纳了这一建议。这一建议代表了社会学研究如何直接导致公共政策建议，并至少导致政策制定者态度改变的一个例子。事实上，在20世纪70年代，三个联邦政府小组建议增加青少年的就业。然而，有问题的研究并没有直接解决国家研究委员会提出的建议。在他们的建议中，NRC推断，随着16岁童工法的放宽，进入劳动力市场的现象导致了问题行为的增加。但是，导致这一建议的研究是基于工作强度和问题行为之间的横截面相关性，充其量只是对以前的犯罪行为进行了控制。知道工作时间较长的年轻人比工作时间较短的年轻人有更多的问题行为，控制观察结果，本身并不能证明年轻人的问题行为会因为工作投入的增加而增加。事实上，最近的计量经济学研究警告说，在先前的研究中观察到的不利的工作强度效应可能是由于对未观察到的异质性的忽视造成的，并且较长的工作时间可能没有因果影响，或者在某些情况下可能会减少犯罪参与。更广泛的影响PI将各州在16岁和17岁时童工法律的差异与1997年全国青年纵向调查中青少年自我报告的工作和问题行为的变化联系起来。这项研究将调查16岁以上青少年的问题行为、工作质量和其他方面的工作，这是政策体制从联邦法律到州法律变化的结果。这项研究特别关注了劳动力市场状况与这些法律之间的相互作用，部分原因是这些法律在宽松的劳动力市场中不太可能像在对青年劳动力有需求的紧张劳动力市场中那样具有相关性。一般程序使PI能够阐明将联邦限制扩大到16岁和17岁的潜在后果。这是第一个直接探讨NRC政策建议的研究。这种方法也将为关于工作和青年行为之间因果关系的社会学问题提供新的准实验证据。研究结果将是独特的，因为它们的权力来自与政策制定者直接相关的立法变化，因此，社会科学家和政策制定者都将感兴趣。

Shawn BushwayUniversity of Maryland, College ParkAccording to data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, employment during high school is ubiquitous. For example, fully 87 percent of students have worked during at least one month of high school by May of their senior year, and many employed students work at high intensity, generally considered over 20 hours per week. In addition, almost one in four employed seniors (23%) works full time at over 35 hours per week. But empirical work stretching back to the early 1980s establishes that long work hours in combination with school enrollment are correlated with elevated involvement in a variety of problem behaviors, not the least of which are crime and substance use. Partly on the basis of the research showing adverse effects of extensive work involvement on problem behavior, the National Research Council (1998:227) proposed extending federal limits on youth work involvement during the school year-which currently apply to 14 and 15 year olds only-to 16 and 17 year olds. This recommendation was adopted in the Youth Worker Protection Act, a bill introduced in the 108th Congress. This recommendation represents an example of how sociological research can lead directly to public policy recommendation, and at the very least to a change in attitudes on the part of policymakers. Indeed, in the 1970s, three federal government panels recommended an increase in employment for adolescents. Yet the research in question does not directly address the proposal made by the National Research Council. In their recommendation, the NRC infers that the movement into the labor market that accompanies the relaxation of child labor laws at age 16 leads to increased problem behavior. But the research that led to this recommendation is based on the cross-sectional correlation between work intensity and problem behavior with, at best, a control for previous offending. Knowing that youths who work longer hours have more problem behavior than youth who work fewer, controlling for observables, does not in itself prove that youths will increase their problem behavior as a result of an increase in work involvement. Indeed, recent econometric work cautions that the adverse work intensity effect observed in prior studies may be driven by inattention to unobserved heterogeneity, and that longer work hours may have no causal impact or may under some circumstances reduce delinquent involvement.Broader ImpactsThe PI maps state-to-state variation in child labor laws at ages 16 and 17 onto changes in self-reported work and problem behavior for youths in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. The study will examine what happens to problem behavior, job quality, and other dimensions of youth work as a result of the change in policy regime from federal to state laws at age 16. The study pays special attention to the interaction between labor market conditions and these laws, in part because it is unlikely that the laws will be as relevant in loose labor markets as they are in tight labor markets where there is a demand for youth labor. The general procedure gives the PI the ability to shed light on the potential consequences of expanding federal restrictions to cover 16 and 17 year olds. This the first study that so directly explores the policy recommendation from the NRC. This approach will also provide new quasi-experimental evidence for the sociological question regarding the causal relationship between work and youth behavior. Study results will be unique in that they derive their power from legislative variation that is of direct interest to policymakers, and as such, will be of interest to both social scientists and policymakers..