Youth employment in the united states

Monthly Labor Review

Volumn 124, Issue 8, 2001, Pages 6-17

  Rothstein, Donna S ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0040754376     PISSN: 00981818     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (17)

1. Data include oversamples of black and Hispanic youths. Subsequent to the release of round-1 NLSY97 data, some duplicate observations were discovered, and the sample size for that round then fell from 9,022 to 8,984. Sample weights at the time this article was begun were based on all 9,022 observations, and the tables that are presented use the full round-1 sample, as well as round-1 sample weights to adjust for differing sample rates; this approach ensures that the data are nationally representative of U.S. youths born in the years 1980-84.
2. A number of the tables in this article also appear in Press Release USDL 99-110 and Report on the Youth Labor Force (Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 2000).
3. A number of the tables in this article also appear in Press Release USDL 99-110 and Report on the Youth Labor Force (Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 2000).
4. However, the round-1 survey also contains a "CPS Section" containing questions from the Current Population Survey that can be used to determine a youth's labor force status in the week prior to the interview. The article "Youth employment: results from two longitudinal surveys school" (this issue, pp. 25-37) uses data from the "CPS Section."
5. Youths are aged 12-16 as of December 31, 1996. The round-1 interview occurred in 1997, when most youths had not yet turned 17. Because the number of youths for whom data were collected for the entire year they were 16 is small, the article does not show tabulations for 16-year-olds.
6. See, for example, National Research Council, Protecting Youth at Work (Washington, DC, National Academy Press, 1998).
7. As just stated, only youths aged 12 or 13 at the date of the interview report employment at these young ages. Thus, it is not possible to use round-1 NLSY97 data to calculate youth employment for the entire year that youths are age 13.
8. Mark Schoenhals, Marta Tienda, and Barbara Schneider, "The Educational and Personal Consequences of Adolescent Employment," Social Forces, December 1998, pp. 723-62, provide a brief summary of this research.
9. The categories are (1) families with two biological parents or two adoptive parents (called, for simplicity, two-biological-parent families), (2) families with one biological parent and one step-or adoptive parent (called simply two-parent families), (3) families with one female biological parent and no other parent (female-parent families), (4) families with one male biological parent and no other parent (male-parent families), and (5) families consisting of children living with foster parents, grandparents and no parents, or other relatives and no parents; families of children living in group quarters; and other family arrangements (all lumped together as children not living with parents). Due to the small sample size of male-parent families, the tables that follow exclude that category.
10. Robert T. Michael and Nancy B. Tuma, "Youth Employment: Does Life Begin at 16?" Journal of Labor Economics, October 1984, pp. 464-76, point out that significant percentages of youths in the NLSY79 work before age 16.
11. In all tables and charts in this article, the racial and Hispanic groups are mutually exclusive. Totals include American Indians, Alaskan natives, and Asians and Pacific Islanders, not shown separately.
12. At ages 14 and 15, youths who do not live with a parent work less than youths who live in the other family structures listed in table 1. Youths who do not live with a parent live in varied arrangements, including living with foster parents, grandparents, and other relatives, as well as living in group quarters.
13. The industry shown in this table and in tables 4 and 5 is for the employee job the youth held for the most weeks at a particular age.
14. The occupation shown in this table and in tables 7 and 8 is for the employee job the youth held for the most weeks at a particular age.
15. Yard work includes mowing lawns, shoveling snow, landscaping, and gardening In explaining the concept of freelance jobs to youth respondents, NLSY97 interviewers used babysitting and mowing lawns as examples. Youths who have more than one freelance job at the age of 14 or 15 may appear in both the babysitting and yard-work columns of table 9.
16. Summer is defined as the 13-week period from June 2 through August 31, 1996.
17. Youths who had more than one work activity at age 12 may appear in both the babysitting and yard-work columns of table 11.