A job isn't just a job: The differential impact of formal versus informal work on adolescent problem behavior

Research consistently demonstrates a positive correlation between hours of employment and problem behavior for adolescents. In response, the National Research Council (1998) proposed limits oil youth work involvement, and its recommendation forms the basis for proposed legislation to amend federal child labor provisions. All unanticipated consequence may be to increase the amount of time that youths spend in the informal labor market because child labor laws only govern youth employment ill the formal labor market. In this article, the authors attempt to address this policy implication and fill a gap in the extant literature by examining the impact of both formal and informal employment oil delinquency and substance use. Because work, patients tend to be very different by gender and race or ethnicity, the authors estimate separate models for these subgroups. The authors use longitudinal data to deal with the possibility that there are unobserved differences between those that work and those that do riot.