The part-time job is a rite of passage for most teens. Some are
encouraged to work so they'll stop badgering Mom and Dad for money.
Others want to save up for college. And with unemployment rates
still high in America, many teens work part-time during the school
year in an effort to help out with family finances.
But caution is advised: Among high school students, working more
than 20 hours a week during the school year can lead to academic
and behavior problems.
That's the finding of a new study by researchers at the University of Washington, University of
Virginia, and Temple University.
In a reanalysis of longitudinal data collected in the late 1980s,
researchers examined the impact of getting a job or leaving work
among middle-class teens in 10th and 11th grades.
Drawing from the full sample of about 1,800 individuals, the
researchers compared teens who got jobs to similar teens who didn't
work, and teens who left jobs to similar teens who kept
working.
Using advances in statistical methods, the researchers matched the
teens on a long list of background and personality characteristics
known to influence whether or not a young person chooses to
work. Using this technique allowed more certainty in
estimating the effects of working on teens' development than in the
original analysis of the data.
Less engaged
The researchers found teens who worked more than 20 hours a week
were more likely to be less engaged in school, less likely to excel
in school, and more likely to fall victim to problem behavior like
stealing, carrying a weapon, and using alcohol and illegal
drugs.
They also found things didn't get better for those teens when they
cut back on work hours or quit working altogether.
However, families in desperate need to extra income, regardless of
how much need not worry -- working 20 hours or less a week seemed
to have no academic, psychological, or behavioral effect on
teens.
Kathryn C. Monahan, a postdoctoral research scientist at the
University of Washington, who led the study said working part-time
during the school year has been a fixture of American adolescence
for more than 30 years and many of today’s teens not only
hold part-time jobs, but work over 20 hours a week.
"Although working during high school is unlikely to turn
law-abiding teenagers into felons or cause students to flunk out of
school, the extent of the adverse effects we found is not trivial,
and even a small decline in school engagement or increase in
problem behavior may be of concern to many parents," adds
Monahan.
The bottom line, suggests Monahan: "Parents, educators, and
policymakers should monitor and constrain the number of hours
adolescents work while they are enrolled in high school."
The study appears in the January/February issue of Child Development.