Posted on: Sunday, April 10, 2005

Busier lives have fewer teens seeking after-school jobs

By Barbara Hagenbaugh
USA Today

Many teens today are working harder than ever — just not for a paycheck.

Teens are studying more, are taking heavier course loads and are involved in more extracurricular activities than ever before.

But the percentage of teenagers working or looking for work has steadily fallen in the past two decades to the lowest on record. In the last quarter-century, the percentage of teens ages 16 to 19 in the workforce fell 25 percent to 44 percent in 2004, based on a median of the monthly participation rate. Although that percentage was a bit higher during the summer — 54 percent of teens were in the workforce in July — the portion of teens working during the summer months last year was still the lowest on record.

What is in question is whether teens are missing out on important lessons learned from early work experience.

Jeylan Mortimer, a sociology professor and director of the Life Course Center at the University of Minnesota, says her research, which has involved tracking former St. Paul high school students for more than a decade, has found that working moderate amounts during high school was beneficial not just while the students were in school but beyond.

Teens who worked learned key basics, what she calls "generic learning," such as showing up on time and dealing with supervisors. They also developed stronger self-esteem and other traits that carried beyond their teen years.

"They learned important lessons about handling stressors in the future," says Mortimer, author of "Working and Growing Up in America." "They learned how to deal with people, they developed interpersonal skills, they learned how to overcome shyness."

But while some economists, sociologists and psychologists say it is important to learn those lessons at an early age, others argue that the type of work teens do generally doesn't help that much later in life, and working might prove too big a burden on teens as they go through school. If students are focusing their attention on school and other worthwhile activities, their lack of work experience might not be harmful in the long run.

"This could be a good thing," says Erica Groshen, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York who studies labor market issues. "It could be good for employers and for society as a whole if it means we are getting more and better education for our workers."

Not enough time

Brian Cavanagh-Strong, 18, of Ann Arbor, Mich., has worked a total of three weeks in his life, but he's hardly sitting around watching reruns of "Friends."

The high school senior gets

A grades and takes a heavy course load, including advanced journalism, advanced Latin poetry, a one-on-one advanced calculus course and writing. After school, he participates in theater, currently rehearsing two hours a day for his upcoming part in "The Crucible," practices jazz piano at least 1ý hours a day in addition to playing in a band, then studies for a few hours.

All those activities leave little time for work, he says.

"I am doing things after school every day until very late," Cavanagh-Strong says. "I don't think employers would be very happy with my time commitment."

Cavanagh-Strong's parents give him a monthly allowance for expenses. In return, he works around the house.

For Barbara Tibbetts of Wilmington, Del., it makes more sense for her and her husband to help her son, Will, 16, with expenses than to expect him to find a job. The high school sophomore plays on various sports teams year round and spends a lot of time volunteering.

"We've just decided that he's going to have to devote his time to sports and to school," she says. "There are so many more pressures on teenagers now than there were when I was a teenager."

The decline in teens working is not a result of rich kids getting handouts from mom and dad. According to a USA Today analysis of Education Department in-depth surveys of high school sophomores, the decline in kids working from 1990 to 2002 was much more pronounced among kids from families whose income ranks in the bottom quarter than those from the highest. Middle-income kids had the greatest likelihood of working in both of the study years.

Pressure to achieve — at school, in sports and in other activities — is one of the key theories for why fewer teens have jobs:

• School. The percentage of teens ages 16 to 19 who are enrolled in school has jumped more than 10 percentage points in the past two decades to 81 percent in 2003, the most recent Labor Department data. Summer school is also growing more popular. More than one-third of 16- to 19-year-olds were enrolled in school in July 2004, nearly triple the percentage in July 1989.

While many students both work and go to school, the biggest declines in teens who work are among those in school. According to the Education Department data on sophomores, 23 percent said they spent 10 or more hours on homework per week in 2002, up from 14 percent in 1990.

The more hours students spent on homework, the less likely they were to have jobs, suggesting those who aren't working are using extra time to study, not goof off.

• College pressure. The number of high school graduates in recent years has risen to highs last seen in the 1970s, while the number of students enrolling in college has hit record levels and is projected to increase, according to the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

Many students think colleges see holding offices in extracurricular groups, such as Spanish Club and band, as more valuable than working six hours a week as a cashier.

• College is costly. The cost of one year at a private college, including tuition, fees, room, board and other expenses, was $26,854 in the fall, up nearly 6 percent from the prior year, according to the College Board. The cost for a year at a public, four-year school rose nearly 10 percent to an average of $10,636. In 2003, costs rose 14 percent at public colleges and 6 percent at private colleges.

The expectation that students can save for college working part time while in high school and make a dent in their expenses has eroded significantly. To some students, it makes more sense to spend the time studying for the SATs rather than working.