Employment in Adolescence

Youth employment is worthy of notice because the number of young workers is increasing in both developed and developing countries. Youth employment encompasses youths between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four working part-time or full-time for money, outside their family. Youths younger than fifteen working for money are regarded as child laborers; such labor is prohibited in many regions.

Youth laborers are, obviously, at the age of secondary schooling. Most of them take a part-time job to earn some pocket money after school. Some of them, mostly academic underachievers, discontinue formal schooling and take up a full-time job. According to Catherine Loughlin and Julian Barling, half of the youths between the ages of seventeen and nineteen in the United States have part-time or full-time jobs. In addition, many senior secondary students work around twenty hours a week, and about 10 percent of senior secondary students work more than thirty-five hours a week, just like full-time workers. Julian Barling and E. Kevin Kelloway found that 25 percent of Canadian youths in the seventeen to nineteen age group work more than twenty hours a week. Similar results were found for a developed city in Asia, Hong Kong. The labor participation rate for Hong Kong youths was 25 percent for those fifteen to nineteen and 78 percent for those nineteen to twenty-four.

Young people who work go through a growing process that is influenced by their working experiences. The impacts of youth employment are quite controversial.