Beneficial “child labor”: The impact of adolescent work on future professional outcomes

Abstract

for helpful comments on earlier drafts of the paper. All mistakes remain the responsibility of the co-authors. ABSTRACTPurpose À Theories of income inequality frequently cite child and adolescent labor as a societal problem. In contrast to such theories, we propose that path dependency coupled with enhancement of human and social capital enables some adolescents who work to find more attractive jobs later in life.Methodology À Using the longitudinal Youth in Transition Survey (YITS) spanning over 10 years, we find support for a positive relationship between adolescents' number of work hours and future desirable professional outcomes such as being employed, income, person-organization fit, knowing where to look for a job, and career networking.Findings À The positive relationship, in many instances, is curvilinear and highlights the downfall of working excessive hours. We also explore whether adolescent work for a stranger or family member leads to different outcomes, and find that working in a family business leads to enhanced later life utilization of career networks as well as better personorganization fit.Social implications À While we find that adolescent work intensity is linked to positive later life outcomes such as higher income, better fitting jobs, and better career networks, we also find maxima whereby additional hours worked have a diminishing effect on the outcomes. This suggests the need for societal norms and/or laws to avoid excessive adolescent work.Value of chapter À The findings in this chapter shed light on the role of early life work experiences in future professional outcomes. We show that certain types of adolescent employment can enhance future career prospects, counter to much of the established literature on the detrimental impact of youth labor.

“I’ll be more prepared than most people”: Very young Canadian workers talking about their first jobs

“…Young workers are embedded in diverse, often conflicting arguments regarding what it means for them to work. For example, some researchers note that a certain amount of limited, early work is considered acceptable, even desirable, within the Global North, as it is thought by parents, school officials and others to inculcate social capital (McCoy and Smyth, 2007) and character building (Nagengast et al, 2014) through developing a reliable work ethic and/or responsibility (Levine and Hoffner, 2006;Phillips and Sandstrom, 1990) and may provide young people the opportunity to develop work skills for the future (McKechnie et al, 2014;Houshmand et al, 2014). Such discussion reflects a broader focus on young people as 'becoming', or undergoing an unfolding process of development and socialization (James et al, 1998).…”