RT Article
T1 Using State Child Labor Laws to Identify the Causal Effect of Youth Employment on Deviant Behavior and Academic Achievement
JF Journal of quantitative criminology
VO 24
IS 4
SP 337
OP 362
A1 Apel, Robert
A2 Bushway, Shawn D.
A2 Paternoster, Raymond
A2 Brame, Robert
A2 Sweeten, Gary
LA English
YR 2008
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1764279913
AB 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.
K1 instrumental variables
K1 Longitudinal data
K1 school performance
K1 Crime and deviance
K1 Youth employment
DO 10.1007/s10940-008-9055-5