Using State Child Labor Laws to Identify the Causal Effect of Youth Employment on Deviant Behavior and Academic Achievement

On the basis of prior research findings that employed youth, and especially intensively employed youth, have higher rates of delinquent behavior and lower academic achievement, scholars have called for limits on the maximum number of hours per week that teenagers are allowed to work. We use the Nati...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Apel, Robert (Author)
Contributors: Bushway, Shawn D. ; Paternoster, Raymond ; Brame, Robert ; Sweeten, Gary
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2008
In: Journal of quantitative criminology
Year: 2008, Volume: 24, Issue: 4, Pages: 337-362
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Keywords:
Crime and deviance
Longitudinal data
Youth employment
instrumental variables
school performance
Description
Summary:On the basis of prior research findings that employed youth, and especially intensively employed youth, have higher rates of delinquent behavior and lower academic achievement, scholars have called for limits on the maximum number of hours per week that teenagers are allowed to work. We use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to assess the claim that employment and work hours are causally related to adolescent problem behavior. We utilize a change model with age-graded child labor laws governing the number of hours per week allowed during the school year as instrumental variables. We find that these work laws lead to additional number of hours worked by youth, which then lead to increased high school dropout but decreased delinquency. Although counterintuitive, this result is consistent with existing evidence about the effect of employment on crime for adults and the impact of dropout on youth crime.
ISSN:1573-7799
DOI:10.1007/s10940-008-9055-5