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Youth employment: Its relationship to academic and family variables
Journal of Vocational Behavior 26, 155-163 (1985)
Youth Employment: Its Relationship to Academic and Family Variables WILLIAM J. SCHILL, ROSEMARIEMCCARTIN, AND KATRINA MEYER College
of Education,
University
of Washington
Survey data from 4587 Washington State high school students were used to investigate relationships among students’ employment status and family structure, socioeconomic position, and adolescent academic success. Employed students were more likely to have higher GPAs, be from higher socioeconomic families, or have a mother or father employed in a higher-status occupation; no relationship was found between mother’s or father’s education and employment of the student. The unemployed student was more likely to be from a lower socioeconomic family than was the employed student, to have a lower GPA, and to have a father and mother working in a lower status occupation. When hours of employment for the student were categorized into the unemployed, those employed 20 h a week or less, and those employed over 20 h a week, hours of employment were found to have a statistically significant curvilinear relationship to adolescents’ GPA. 0 1985 Academic Press. Inc.
The topic of part-time employment of high school students has drawn increased national attention and assessment. Proponents of part-time work cite the contribution of students’ dollar earnings to family support or persona1 enjoyment and the opportunity to learn vocational skills, proper work attitudes, adult roles, and social skills (Hamilton & Crouter, 1980; Steinberg, Greenberger, Jacobi, & Garduque, 1981). Supporters also credit participation in work with increasing the vocational maturity of youth (Jordaan & Heyde, 1979)and keeping potential dropouts enrolled in school. Opponents contend that the content and environment of jobs available to youth do not provide the opportunity for acquiring vocational skills, adult roles, or social maturity (Behn, Carnoy, Carter, Crain, & Levin, 1974; Greenberger & Steinberg, 1980; Steinberg et al., 1981;Greenberger, Steinberg, & Ruggiero, 1982). The assumption that work is undimensional ignores the many aspects of work that can be problematic to youth’s socialization (Greenberger & Steinberg, 1981). One of the imputed benefits Send requests for reprints to Dr. William J. Schill, College of Education, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195. 155 OOOI-879M35
$3.00
Copyright 0 1985 by Academic Press. Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
156
SCHILL,
MC CARTIN,
AND MEYER
used to promote part-time work for youth has been the opportunity it presents for interaction with adults as the adolescents learn about themselves and the world of work. Greenberger, Steinberg, Vaux, and McAuliffe (1980) and Greenberger et al. (1982) found, however, little encouragement for the belief that work served as an adjunct to learning or an alternative to schooling; these studies found that scant use was made of academic skills, little opportunity existed on usual adolescent jobs for formal training, less than 20% of time was spent with an adult supervisor, and working reduced the time available for other activities. Current emphasis on part-time employment has reflected the proponents’ position. Flexible school schedules for working students have been established, youth labor laws liberalized, and work experience legitimized by the awarding of school credit. However, the critics continue to question whether part-time employment of in-school youth is as benign as supposed and whether it benefits the targeted groups supporters say it should. The relationship between family socioeconomic position and finances available to the adolescent is an obvious one. It is well documented in the status attainment literature that father’s occupational status (the best indicator of family socioeconomic status) has a consistent influence on the adolescent’s financial decisions-such as attending college (Featherman & Hauser, 1976; Ginzberg, 1971; Tillery, 1973; Zeller, 1970). Working mothers add to family socioeconomic position through provision of a second paycheck. The recent and steady growth in employed mothers is therefore pertinent to an analysis of the adolescent’s decision to work and for how many hours per week. The opinion that youths work because of need seems contrary to the curvilinear relationship between socioeconomic status and labor force participation found in the High School and Beyond (National Center for Education Statistics, 1981) nationwide study of 1979-1980 seniors. Young (1979) confirmed this curvilinear relationship: as family socioeconomic position increased from lower to middle-income levels, labor market participation of adolescents increased; then as family position increased beyond the middle-income level, employment declined. Endriss and Fromkin (1980) found that higher-income adolescents increased their employment rate very slightly. One argument for adolescent employment claims that work is a valuable way for adolescents to interact with adults and learn adult roles. There exists little empirical evidence to support this claim, as the Greenberger et al. (1982) study shows. What relationship exists, then, between family structure and incidence of youthful employment? Are workers from families minus the requisite quota of adults and thus their work provides an essential contact with the adult world they might otherwise miss? The opinion that part-time employment is the domain of the less academically motivated seems contradicted by the large numbers of able
YOUTHEMPLOYMENT
157
students employed. Greenberger and Steinberg (1980) found their student workers to have lower, but not statistically significant lower, GPAs than nonworkers. However, the same research found that working longer hours produced significantly lower GPAs. Clearly, looking at number of hours worked is an important aspect to be considered when investigating adolescents’ in-school employment. It is of some importance, then, to look at work and the number of hours spent at a job in relation to antecedent qualities of family and academic success before arriving at conclusions of the relative benefit or detriment of part-time employment. Two questions emerged from the literature and became the focus of this study. The first asked if there were differences between employed and unemployed students in indicators of family socioeconomic position (father’s and mother’s occupational status and educational attainment), family structure, and adolescent academic success. The second asked if the number of hours a student works was related to family socioeconomic position, family structure, or academic success. METHOD
Subjects The sample of 4587 students from the State of Washington represents 31 public high schools, 5 public alternative high schools, 2 private high schools, and 1 skills center. The schools include representation from the major cities, the suburbs, smaller cities scattered throughout the state, and small agricultural towns. Although schools were not selected randomly, when selected data were compared with data from the High School and Beyond (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1981) study, no systematic bias became apparent. The students ranged in age from 14 to 19 years and included 270 freshman, 660 sophomores, 1438 juniors, and 2178 seniors. Forty-six percent of the students were male and fifty-four percent were female. Procedure With the assistance of school principals, teachers were identified who taught a course required for high school graduation in which enrollment was primarily seniors. The teachers distributed the questionnaires to the students in all their classes one day in the middle of the week during the month of May 1983. Students completed the questionnaire, returned it to the teacher who placed the responses from each class in a selfaddressed envelope, and mailed it to the principal investigator. Because all students in each class completed the questionnaire, juniors, sophomores, and freshmen were included with the seniors. The function of separate envelopes for each class permitted the student to witness the teacher
158
SCHILL,
MC CARTIN,
AND MEYER
mailing the completed questionnaires without inspecting them. The questionnaire required about 20 min to complete and less than one-half of 1% of the responses contained frivolous and obviously invalid information. Instruments Answers provided by respondents to questions about their present employment and their mother’s and father’s occupations were transformed into useful socioeconomic form. The last two decades have witnessed the popular use of Duncan’s (Reiss, 1961) socioeconomic index (SEI) of occupations based on an estimation of its educational requirements, earnings, and prestige. We chose the Duncan SE1 for coding parents’ occupations because of its stability over time, range (from 0 to 96), and its well-researched characteristics (Powers, 1982). As the incidence of working mothers has increased, the Duncan SE1 has been used to capture their contribution to family socioeconomic status, although not without criticism (Powers, 1982). The students who reported they were employed (49% of the total sample) provided information sufficient to permit assigning an SE1 code for their present job. The mean SE1 for all employed students was 24.8 which, as expected, represents a majority of lower-status occupations. Two-thirds of the mothers (or female guardians) who were employed produced a mean SE1 of 41.3. Over 80% of the fathers (or male guardians) were employed and had a mean SE1 of 42.6, only slightly higher than that of the working women. The correlation between the SEIs for the 2406 pairs of working parents was .22 (JJ< .OOl). While it is understood that educational attainment is reflected in the occupations of each parent, it also makes an important contribution to values acquisition and supplies appropriate role models for the family. The students categorized each parent’s education as less than high school, high school, some college, or college graduate, and these data were coded as 0 through 3. A family structure variable was constructed that grouped students into nominal categories: those with both natural parents plus an additional adult (the extended nuclear family) were grouped with those living with both natural parents (the nuclear family); those with one natural parent and one stepparent (a modified structure); those living with only one natural parent (the single-parent home); and those living in foster homes. Of the sample, 2863 (66.7%) of the students reporting this information lived with both of their natural parents, 441 (10.3%) lived with one natural parent and a stepparent, 20.7% lived with a single parent, and 2.3% with a foster parent. For purposes of this study, these four categories best described the family types from which students came. The students were asked to report their estimated grade point average. To check on the validity of their estimation, they were also asked to
159
YOUTH EMPLOYMENT
indicate whether or not they would graduate with their class and whether or not they planned to attend college. Those with low GPAs were most likely to indicate they would not graduate with their class and were least likely to indicate they planned to attend college. A concern of researchers has been the reliability of self-reported grades; Wilson and Portes (1975) found that examination of self-reported grades against school records indicated that the adolescents provided reasonably accurate information. Thus, it was decided that the estimated GPA appeared to be an acceptable measure of academic performance. Four categories of GPA were then constructed ranging from 0 to 1.5, 1.6 to 2.5, 2.6 to 3.5, and 3.5 to 4.0, across which students were distributed as follows: 1.2%, 21.1%, 58.5%, and 19.5%, respectively. Students reported a mean GPA of 2.96 on a four-point scale. RESULTS
To test for differences between the employed and unemployed students, analysis of variance F ratios were computed on father’s and mother’s SEI, each parent’s educational attainment, and academic success (see Table 1). Employed students can be seen to have higher GPAs than unemployed students and to come from families with higher socioeconomic status. There appears to be no relationship between students’ employment status and the educational attainment of their parents. The family structure variable was considered to be categorical and, therefore, the independence of employment status from family structure TABLE 1 Relationship of Employment Status to Family and Academic Variables
Mothers’ SE1 Employed Unemployed Fathers’ SE1 Employed Unemployed Mothers’ education Employed Unemployed Fathers’ education Employed Unemployed Estimated GPA Employed Unemployed * p < .OOl.
n
M
SD
F
1710 1750
43.6 39.4
26.2 28.1
20.4*
2209 2289
44.5 41.0
29.6 30.9
15.2*
2139 2179
1.89 1.86
.82 .83
1.44
2081 2079
2.10 2.08
.87 .88
.63
2180 2254
3.00 2.91
.65 .69
19.6*
160
SCHILL, MC CARTIN, AND MEYER
was tested with x2 analysis. The comparison between employment status and family structure resulted in x2(3) = 16.67, p < .OOl. The employment status of the students, therefore, is not independent of the family structure variable. The largest contributors to the significant x2 were the two cells for students from foster parent homes: the observed number of unemployed students far exceeded expectation while the actual number of employed students from foster parent homes was far below expectation. To further investigate the relationship between hours of work and indicators of family socioeconomic status, academic success, and family structure, students were grouped into three categories: (a) unemployed, (b) employed 20 h or less per week, and (c) employed over 20 h per week. Analysis of variance yielded the results in Table 2. The resulting means for the three groups reveal a potential for curvilinear relationships between the antecedent variables of family socioeconomic status, parental occupational status, and academic success with the employment status of students. When a post facto test for curvilinearity was made by means of Scheffe’s range test, only GPA produced a statistically significant (r, -=I .05) curvilinear relationship to hours worked. The students who work less than 20 h have the highest average GPA, while those working more than 20 h and those who are unemployed have lower GPAs. The analysis of the family structure variable and hours worked resulted TABLE 2 Relationship of Hours Worked to Family and Academic Variables Group Mothers’ SE1 Unemployed < 20 h > 20 h Fathers’ SE1 Unemployed < 20 h > 20 h Mothers’ education Unemployed < 20 h > 20 h Fathers’ education Unemployed < 20 h > 20 h Estimated GPA Unemployed < 20 h > 20 h *p<.OO1.
n
M
SD
F
1750 1201 509
39.43 43.49 43.89
28.11 26.04 26.54
10.25*
2289 1538 671
41.01 45.26 42.87
30.92 29.42 29.87
9.05*
2179 1493 646
1.87 1.91 I .86
.83 .82 .83
1.53
2079 1459 622
2.08 2.12 2.06
.88 .86 .89
1.24
2254 1516 664
2.92 3.05 2.92
.69 .66 .63
18.47*
YOUTH EMPLOYMENT
161
in x2(6) = 21.17, p < .005. Again, the cells making greatest contribution to total x2 were from students living in foster parent homes who were more likely to be unemployed than their peers in other family structures. DISCUSSION
The curvilinear relationships of hours worked and employment status to family socioeconomic position is interesting for the information we can derive about who works and why. If these results indicate valid and consistent preconditions to adolescent employment, those who work already have an advantage over nonworkers in access to successful adult role models, academic ability, and in the choice to work not based solely in response to financial need. While the nature of the present data do not allow causal inferences to be made, perhaps the coincidence of these factors will shed a different light on the results of other researchers concerned with the effects of part-time employment. The present sample revealed an interesting relationship between family structure and adolescent employment, although it is unclear why students from more intact families should have a greater likelihood of being employed. Relatively little research into the relationships of different family structures on the adolescent’s work experiences has been reported, and the need for greater insight into this area is obvious. But these results do throw some doubt on the reasoning that part-time work is justifiable because of its ability to give youth a greater amount of contact with adults and adult roles. This discrepancy between common wisdom and fact must be faced. Clearly, the positive relationship between GPA and employment status needs to be better understood and attempts to isolate potential directional or even causal relationships should be undertaken. Whether higher achievement serves as a screening device for employers-as it is thought to operate for adults-or the more able student is capable of taking on greater responsibilities and time-consuming activities, should be researched. However, the results of this study lead us to question whether part-time employment actually works as an incentive to keep the less academically gifted in school. Our workers already seem to possess higher GPAs than nonworkers, though the differences in mean GPA between groups is not overwhelming. The complex interrelationships among GPA, socioeconomic position, and work cannot be ignored; they complicate any clarification of the relationship between achievement and labor market involvement. The data thus hint at an intertwining of family variables with the adolescent’s employment experiences. Student employment seems less dependent on traditional indicators of need-i.e., coming from low socioeconomic families-than is widely supposed. Middle-status students seem more likely to have a job-a job at which they work fewer hours than their lower-socioeconomic-status counterparts. Students who work,
162
SCHILL, MC CARTIN, AND MEYER
then, are not necessarily individuals needing employment for economic survival. Adolescents from middle-income families are more likely to work, which in a sense increases their advantage, while those from lowerincome families seem doubly disadvantaged. The positive relationships between employed mothers and their adolescents’ employment status and hours worked corresponds to the more traditional and researched relationship of father’s occupational status to adolescent outcomes. The working mother seems to provide a model for the employment experiences of offspring in the same manner as the father. These results allow a tentative observation that the same process may be operating for both parents, regardless of sex of the parent. The relationship between family variables and adolescent outcomes is plagued by difficulties. The ability of a family to pass on advantages to children may not be entirely captured by looking at family and adolescent variables. Clearly, that ability can be aided or abetted by differential labor market practices and those practices, with the covert assumptions and preferences that support such practices, should be delineated and discussed. The present results also seem to call into question several of the arguments proponents propose in support of part-time employment of in-school youth. Thus, the policy implications of the foregoing research might also question the efficacy of changing school graduation criteria, labor laws, and employment practices for the promotion of greater student part-time employment. Clearly, the arguments for youth employment must be reevaluated as our school policies, business practices, and covert employment assumptions are investigated with an eye to actualities rather than rhetoric. REFERENCES Behn, W. H., Camoy, M., Carter, M. A., Cram, J. C., & Levin, H. M. (1974). School is bad; work is worse. School Review, 83, 49-68. Endriss, J. R., & Froomkin, J. (1980). The labor market experience of 14-21 year-olds. Research on youth employment and employability. Washington, DC: Department of Labor. Featherman, D. L., & Hauser, R. M. (1976). Sexual inequalities and socioeconomic achievement in the U.S., 1%2-1973. American Sociological Review, 41, 462-483. Ginzberg, E. (1971). Career guidance. New York: McGraw-Hill. Greenberger, E., & Steinberg, L. D. (1980). Part-time employment of in-school youth: A preliminary assessment of costs and benefits. In A review of youth employment problems, programs, and policies (Vol. 1). Washington, DC: Department of Labor. Greenberger, E., & Steinberg, L. D. (1981). The workplace as a context for the socialization of youth. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 10, 185-210. Greenberger, E., Steinberg, L. D., Vaux, A., & McAuliffe, S. (1980). Adolescents who work: Effects of part-time employment on family and peer relations. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 9, 189-202. Greenberger, E., Steinberg, L. D., & Ruggiero, M. (1982). A job is a job is a job . or is it? Work and Occupations, 9, 79-96.
YOUTH EMPLOYMENT
163
Hamilton, S. F., & Crouter, A. C. (1980). Work and growth: A review of research on the impact of work experience on adolescent development. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 9, 49-68. Jordaan, J. P., & Heyde, M. B. (1979). Vocational maturity during the high school years. New York: Teachers College Press. Majoribanks, K., Walberg, H. S., & Bargen, M. (1975). Mental abilities: Sibling constellation and social class correlates. British Journal ofSocial and Clinical Psychology, 14, 109116. National Center for Educational Statistics. (1981). High school and beyond: A capsule description of high school students. Washington, DC: U.S. Govt. Printing Office. Powers, M. G. (Ed.). (1982). Measures of socioeconomic status. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Reiss, A. J., Jr. (1961). Occupations and social status. New York: Free Press of Glencoe. Rosenthal, D., & Hansen, J. (1980). Comparison of adolescents’ perceptions and behaviors in single- and two-parent families. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 9, 407-417. Steinberg, L. D., Greenberger, E., Jacobi, M., & Garduque, L. (1981).Early work experience: A partial antidote for adolescent egocentrism. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 10, 141-157. Steinberg, L. D., Greenberger, E., Garduque, L., & McAuliffe, S. (1982). High school students in the labor force: Some costs and benefits to schooling and learning. Educational Evaluation
and Policy Analysis,
4, 363-372.
Tiliery, D. (1973). Distribution and d$ferentiation of youth. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. Wilson, K. L., & Portes, A. (1975). The educational attainment process: Results from a national sample. American Journal of Sociology, 81, 343-363. Young, A. M. (1979). The difference a year makes in the nation’s youth work force. Monthly
Labor Review,
102, 34-38.
Zeller, F. A. (1970). Career thresholds: A longitudinal study of the educational market experience of male youth. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University. Received: March 28, 1984.
and labor
Youth Employment: Its Relationship to Academic and Family Variables WILLIAM J. SCHILL, ROSEMARIEMCCARTIN, AND KATRINA MEYER College
of Education,
University
of Washington
Survey data from 4587 Washington State high school students were used to investigate relationships among students’ employment status and family structure, socioeconomic position, and adolescent academic success. Employed students were more likely to have higher GPAs, be from higher socioeconomic families, or have a mother or father employed in a higher-status occupation; no relationship was found between mother’s or father’s education and employment of the student. The unemployed student was more likely to be from a lower socioeconomic family than was the employed student, to have a lower GPA, and to have a father and mother working in a lower status occupation. When hours of employment for the student were categorized into the unemployed, those employed 20 h a week or less, and those employed over 20 h a week, hours of employment were found to have a statistically significant curvilinear relationship to adolescents’ GPA. 0 1985 Academic Press. Inc.
The topic of part-time employment of high school students has drawn increased national attention and assessment. Proponents of part-time work cite the contribution of students’ dollar earnings to family support or persona1 enjoyment and the opportunity to learn vocational skills, proper work attitudes, adult roles, and social skills (Hamilton & Crouter, 1980; Steinberg, Greenberger, Jacobi, & Garduque, 1981). Supporters also credit participation in work with increasing the vocational maturity of youth (Jordaan & Heyde, 1979)and keeping potential dropouts enrolled in school. Opponents contend that the content and environment of jobs available to youth do not provide the opportunity for acquiring vocational skills, adult roles, or social maturity (Behn, Carnoy, Carter, Crain, & Levin, 1974; Greenberger & Steinberg, 1980; Steinberg et al., 1981;Greenberger, Steinberg, & Ruggiero, 1982). The assumption that work is undimensional ignores the many aspects of work that can be problematic to youth’s socialization (Greenberger & Steinberg, 1981). One of the imputed benefits Send requests for reprints to Dr. William J. Schill, College of Education, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195. 155 OOOI-879M35
$3.00
Copyright 0 1985 by Academic Press. Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
156
SCHILL,
MC CARTIN,
AND MEYER
used to promote part-time work for youth has been the opportunity it presents for interaction with adults as the adolescents learn about themselves and the world of work. Greenberger, Steinberg, Vaux, and McAuliffe (1980) and Greenberger et al. (1982) found, however, little encouragement for the belief that work served as an adjunct to learning or an alternative to schooling; these studies found that scant use was made of academic skills, little opportunity existed on usual adolescent jobs for formal training, less than 20% of time was spent with an adult supervisor, and working reduced the time available for other activities. Current emphasis on part-time employment has reflected the proponents’ position. Flexible school schedules for working students have been established, youth labor laws liberalized, and work experience legitimized by the awarding of school credit. However, the critics continue to question whether part-time employment of in-school youth is as benign as supposed and whether it benefits the targeted groups supporters say it should. The relationship between family socioeconomic position and finances available to the adolescent is an obvious one. It is well documented in the status attainment literature that father’s occupational status (the best indicator of family socioeconomic status) has a consistent influence on the adolescent’s financial decisions-such as attending college (Featherman & Hauser, 1976; Ginzberg, 1971; Tillery, 1973; Zeller, 1970). Working mothers add to family socioeconomic position through provision of a second paycheck. The recent and steady growth in employed mothers is therefore pertinent to an analysis of the adolescent’s decision to work and for how many hours per week. The opinion that youths work because of need seems contrary to the curvilinear relationship between socioeconomic status and labor force participation found in the High School and Beyond (National Center for Education Statistics, 1981) nationwide study of 1979-1980 seniors. Young (1979) confirmed this curvilinear relationship: as family socioeconomic position increased from lower to middle-income levels, labor market participation of adolescents increased; then as family position increased beyond the middle-income level, employment declined. Endriss and Fromkin (1980) found that higher-income adolescents increased their employment rate very slightly. One argument for adolescent employment claims that work is a valuable way for adolescents to interact with adults and learn adult roles. There exists little empirical evidence to support this claim, as the Greenberger et al. (1982) study shows. What relationship exists, then, between family structure and incidence of youthful employment? Are workers from families minus the requisite quota of adults and thus their work provides an essential contact with the adult world they might otherwise miss? The opinion that part-time employment is the domain of the less academically motivated seems contradicted by the large numbers of able
YOUTHEMPLOYMENT
157
students employed. Greenberger and Steinberg (1980) found their student workers to have lower, but not statistically significant lower, GPAs than nonworkers. However, the same research found that working longer hours produced significantly lower GPAs. Clearly, looking at number of hours worked is an important aspect to be considered when investigating adolescents’ in-school employment. It is of some importance, then, to look at work and the number of hours spent at a job in relation to antecedent qualities of family and academic success before arriving at conclusions of the relative benefit or detriment of part-time employment. Two questions emerged from the literature and became the focus of this study. The first asked if there were differences between employed and unemployed students in indicators of family socioeconomic position (father’s and mother’s occupational status and educational attainment), family structure, and adolescent academic success. The second asked if the number of hours a student works was related to family socioeconomic position, family structure, or academic success. METHOD
Subjects The sample of 4587 students from the State of Washington represents 31 public high schools, 5 public alternative high schools, 2 private high schools, and 1 skills center. The schools include representation from the major cities, the suburbs, smaller cities scattered throughout the state, and small agricultural towns. Although schools were not selected randomly, when selected data were compared with data from the High School and Beyond (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1981) study, no systematic bias became apparent. The students ranged in age from 14 to 19 years and included 270 freshman, 660 sophomores, 1438 juniors, and 2178 seniors. Forty-six percent of the students were male and fifty-four percent were female. Procedure With the assistance of school principals, teachers were identified who taught a course required for high school graduation in which enrollment was primarily seniors. The teachers distributed the questionnaires to the students in all their classes one day in the middle of the week during the month of May 1983. Students completed the questionnaire, returned it to the teacher who placed the responses from each class in a selfaddressed envelope, and mailed it to the principal investigator. Because all students in each class completed the questionnaire, juniors, sophomores, and freshmen were included with the seniors. The function of separate envelopes for each class permitted the student to witness the teacher
158
SCHILL,
MC CARTIN,
AND MEYER
mailing the completed questionnaires without inspecting them. The questionnaire required about 20 min to complete and less than one-half of 1% of the responses contained frivolous and obviously invalid information. Instruments Answers provided by respondents to questions about their present employment and their mother’s and father’s occupations were transformed into useful socioeconomic form. The last two decades have witnessed the popular use of Duncan’s (Reiss, 1961) socioeconomic index (SEI) of occupations based on an estimation of its educational requirements, earnings, and prestige. We chose the Duncan SE1 for coding parents’ occupations because of its stability over time, range (from 0 to 96), and its well-researched characteristics (Powers, 1982). As the incidence of working mothers has increased, the Duncan SE1 has been used to capture their contribution to family socioeconomic status, although not without criticism (Powers, 1982). The students who reported they were employed (49% of the total sample) provided information sufficient to permit assigning an SE1 code for their present job. The mean SE1 for all employed students was 24.8 which, as expected, represents a majority of lower-status occupations. Two-thirds of the mothers (or female guardians) who were employed produced a mean SE1 of 41.3. Over 80% of the fathers (or male guardians) were employed and had a mean SE1 of 42.6, only slightly higher than that of the working women. The correlation between the SEIs for the 2406 pairs of working parents was .22 (JJ< .OOl). While it is understood that educational attainment is reflected in the occupations of each parent, it also makes an important contribution to values acquisition and supplies appropriate role models for the family. The students categorized each parent’s education as less than high school, high school, some college, or college graduate, and these data were coded as 0 through 3. A family structure variable was constructed that grouped students into nominal categories: those with both natural parents plus an additional adult (the extended nuclear family) were grouped with those living with both natural parents (the nuclear family); those with one natural parent and one stepparent (a modified structure); those living with only one natural parent (the single-parent home); and those living in foster homes. Of the sample, 2863 (66.7%) of the students reporting this information lived with both of their natural parents, 441 (10.3%) lived with one natural parent and a stepparent, 20.7% lived with a single parent, and 2.3% with a foster parent. For purposes of this study, these four categories best described the family types from which students came. The students were asked to report their estimated grade point average. To check on the validity of their estimation, they were also asked to
159
YOUTH EMPLOYMENT
indicate whether or not they would graduate with their class and whether or not they planned to attend college. Those with low GPAs were most likely to indicate they would not graduate with their class and were least likely to indicate they planned to attend college. A concern of researchers has been the reliability of self-reported grades; Wilson and Portes (1975) found that examination of self-reported grades against school records indicated that the adolescents provided reasonably accurate information. Thus, it was decided that the estimated GPA appeared to be an acceptable measure of academic performance. Four categories of GPA were then constructed ranging from 0 to 1.5, 1.6 to 2.5, 2.6 to 3.5, and 3.5 to 4.0, across which students were distributed as follows: 1.2%, 21.1%, 58.5%, and 19.5%, respectively. Students reported a mean GPA of 2.96 on a four-point scale. RESULTS
To test for differences between the employed and unemployed students, analysis of variance F ratios were computed on father’s and mother’s SEI, each parent’s educational attainment, and academic success (see Table 1). Employed students can be seen to have higher GPAs than unemployed students and to come from families with higher socioeconomic status. There appears to be no relationship between students’ employment status and the educational attainment of their parents. The family structure variable was considered to be categorical and, therefore, the independence of employment status from family structure TABLE 1 Relationship of Employment Status to Family and Academic Variables
Mothers’ SE1 Employed Unemployed Fathers’ SE1 Employed Unemployed Mothers’ education Employed Unemployed Fathers’ education Employed Unemployed Estimated GPA Employed Unemployed * p < .OOl.
n
M
SD
F
1710 1750
43.6 39.4
26.2 28.1
20.4*
2209 2289
44.5 41.0
29.6 30.9
15.2*
2139 2179
1.89 1.86
.82 .83
1.44
2081 2079
2.10 2.08
.87 .88
.63
2180 2254
3.00 2.91
.65 .69
19.6*
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SCHILL, MC CARTIN, AND MEYER
was tested with x2 analysis. The comparison between employment status and family structure resulted in x2(3) = 16.67, p < .OOl. The employment status of the students, therefore, is not independent of the family structure variable. The largest contributors to the significant x2 were the two cells for students from foster parent homes: the observed number of unemployed students far exceeded expectation while the actual number of employed students from foster parent homes was far below expectation. To further investigate the relationship between hours of work and indicators of family socioeconomic status, academic success, and family structure, students were grouped into three categories: (a) unemployed, (b) employed 20 h or less per week, and (c) employed over 20 h per week. Analysis of variance yielded the results in Table 2. The resulting means for the three groups reveal a potential for curvilinear relationships between the antecedent variables of family socioeconomic status, parental occupational status, and academic success with the employment status of students. When a post facto test for curvilinearity was made by means of Scheffe’s range test, only GPA produced a statistically significant (r, -=I .05) curvilinear relationship to hours worked. The students who work less than 20 h have the highest average GPA, while those working more than 20 h and those who are unemployed have lower GPAs. The analysis of the family structure variable and hours worked resulted TABLE 2 Relationship of Hours Worked to Family and Academic Variables Group Mothers’ SE1 Unemployed < 20 h > 20 h Fathers’ SE1 Unemployed < 20 h > 20 h Mothers’ education Unemployed < 20 h > 20 h Fathers’ education Unemployed < 20 h > 20 h Estimated GPA Unemployed < 20 h > 20 h *p<.OO1.
n
M
SD
F
1750 1201 509
39.43 43.49 43.89
28.11 26.04 26.54
10.25*
2289 1538 671
41.01 45.26 42.87
30.92 29.42 29.87
9.05*
2179 1493 646
1.87 1.91 I .86
.83 .82 .83
1.53
2079 1459 622
2.08 2.12 2.06
.88 .86 .89
1.24
2254 1516 664
2.92 3.05 2.92
.69 .66 .63
18.47*
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in x2(6) = 21.17, p < .005. Again, the cells making greatest contribution to total x2 were from students living in foster parent homes who were more likely to be unemployed than their peers in other family structures. DISCUSSION
The curvilinear relationships of hours worked and employment status to family socioeconomic position is interesting for the information we can derive about who works and why. If these results indicate valid and consistent preconditions to adolescent employment, those who work already have an advantage over nonworkers in access to successful adult role models, academic ability, and in the choice to work not based solely in response to financial need. While the nature of the present data do not allow causal inferences to be made, perhaps the coincidence of these factors will shed a different light on the results of other researchers concerned with the effects of part-time employment. The present sample revealed an interesting relationship between family structure and adolescent employment, although it is unclear why students from more intact families should have a greater likelihood of being employed. Relatively little research into the relationships of different family structures on the adolescent’s work experiences has been reported, and the need for greater insight into this area is obvious. But these results do throw some doubt on the reasoning that part-time work is justifiable because of its ability to give youth a greater amount of contact with adults and adult roles. This discrepancy between common wisdom and fact must be faced. Clearly, the positive relationship between GPA and employment status needs to be better understood and attempts to isolate potential directional or even causal relationships should be undertaken. Whether higher achievement serves as a screening device for employers-as it is thought to operate for adults-or the more able student is capable of taking on greater responsibilities and time-consuming activities, should be researched. However, the results of this study lead us to question whether part-time employment actually works as an incentive to keep the less academically gifted in school. Our workers already seem to possess higher GPAs than nonworkers, though the differences in mean GPA between groups is not overwhelming. The complex interrelationships among GPA, socioeconomic position, and work cannot be ignored; they complicate any clarification of the relationship between achievement and labor market involvement. The data thus hint at an intertwining of family variables with the adolescent’s employment experiences. Student employment seems less dependent on traditional indicators of need-i.e., coming from low socioeconomic families-than is widely supposed. Middle-status students seem more likely to have a job-a job at which they work fewer hours than their lower-socioeconomic-status counterparts. Students who work,
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then, are not necessarily individuals needing employment for economic survival. Adolescents from middle-income families are more likely to work, which in a sense increases their advantage, while those from lowerincome families seem doubly disadvantaged. The positive relationships between employed mothers and their adolescents’ employment status and hours worked corresponds to the more traditional and researched relationship of father’s occupational status to adolescent outcomes. The working mother seems to provide a model for the employment experiences of offspring in the same manner as the father. These results allow a tentative observation that the same process may be operating for both parents, regardless of sex of the parent. The relationship between family variables and adolescent outcomes is plagued by difficulties. The ability of a family to pass on advantages to children may not be entirely captured by looking at family and adolescent variables. Clearly, that ability can be aided or abetted by differential labor market practices and those practices, with the covert assumptions and preferences that support such practices, should be delineated and discussed. The present results also seem to call into question several of the arguments proponents propose in support of part-time employment of in-school youth. Thus, the policy implications of the foregoing research might also question the efficacy of changing school graduation criteria, labor laws, and employment practices for the promotion of greater student part-time employment. Clearly, the arguments for youth employment must be reevaluated as our school policies, business practices, and covert employment assumptions are investigated with an eye to actualities rather than rhetoric. REFERENCES Behn, W. H., Camoy, M., Carter, M. A., Cram, J. C., & Levin, H. M. (1974). School is bad; work is worse. School Review, 83, 49-68. Endriss, J. R., & Froomkin, J. (1980). The labor market experience of 14-21 year-olds. Research on youth employment and employability. Washington, DC: Department of Labor. Featherman, D. L., & Hauser, R. M. (1976). Sexual inequalities and socioeconomic achievement in the U.S., 1%2-1973. American Sociological Review, 41, 462-483. Ginzberg, E. (1971). Career guidance. New York: McGraw-Hill. Greenberger, E., & Steinberg, L. D. (1980). Part-time employment of in-school youth: A preliminary assessment of costs and benefits. In A review of youth employment problems, programs, and policies (Vol. 1). Washington, DC: Department of Labor. Greenberger, E., & Steinberg, L. D. (1981). The workplace as a context for the socialization of youth. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 10, 185-210. Greenberger, E., Steinberg, L. D., Vaux, A., & McAuliffe, S. (1980). Adolescents who work: Effects of part-time employment on family and peer relations. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 9, 189-202. Greenberger, E., Steinberg, L. D., & Ruggiero, M. (1982). A job is a job is a job . or is it? Work and Occupations, 9, 79-96.
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Hamilton, S. F., & Crouter, A. C. (1980). Work and growth: A review of research on the impact of work experience on adolescent development. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 9, 49-68. Jordaan, J. P., & Heyde, M. B. (1979). Vocational maturity during the high school years. New York: Teachers College Press. Majoribanks, K., Walberg, H. S., & Bargen, M. (1975). Mental abilities: Sibling constellation and social class correlates. British Journal ofSocial and Clinical Psychology, 14, 109116. National Center for Educational Statistics. (1981). High school and beyond: A capsule description of high school students. Washington, DC: U.S. Govt. Printing Office. Powers, M. G. (Ed.). (1982). Measures of socioeconomic status. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Reiss, A. J., Jr. (1961). Occupations and social status. New York: Free Press of Glencoe. Rosenthal, D., & Hansen, J. (1980). Comparison of adolescents’ perceptions and behaviors in single- and two-parent families. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 9, 407-417. Steinberg, L. D., Greenberger, E., Jacobi, M., & Garduque, L. (1981).Early work experience: A partial antidote for adolescent egocentrism. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 10, 141-157. Steinberg, L. D., Greenberger, E., Garduque, L., & McAuliffe, S. (1982). High school students in the labor force: Some costs and benefits to schooling and learning. Educational Evaluation
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Tiliery, D. (1973). Distribution and d$ferentiation of youth. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. Wilson, K. L., & Portes, A. (1975). The educational attainment process: Results from a national sample. American Journal of Sociology, 81, 343-363. Young, A. M. (1979). The difference a year makes in the nation’s youth work force. Monthly
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Zeller, F. A. (1970). Career thresholds: A longitudinal study of the educational market experience of male youth. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University. Received: March 28, 1984.
and labor