TY - JOUR
T1 - Twelfth-Grade Student Work Intensity Linked to Later Educational Attainment and Substance Use
T2 - New Longitudinal Evidence
AU - Bachman, Jerald G.
AU - Staff, Jeremy
AU - O'Malley, Patrick M.
AU - Schulenberg, John E.
AU - Freedman-Doan, Peter
PY - 2011/3
Y1 - 2011/3
N2 - Long hours of paid employment during high school have been linked to a variety of problem behaviors, but questions remain about whether and to what extent work intensity makes any causal contribution. This study addresses those questions by focusing on how 12th-grade work intensity is associated with substance use and educational attainment in the years following high school. It uses 2 nationally representative longitudinal data sets from the Monitoring the Future project, spanning a total of 3 decades. One data set tracks 8th graders for 8 years (modal ages 14-22) and provides extensive controls for possible prior causes; the second, larger data set tracks 12th graders for up to 12 years (to modal ages 29-30) and permits assessment of possible short-term and longer term consequences. Findings based on propensity score matching and multivariate regression analyses are highly consistent across the 2 sets of data. All findings show that more fundamental prior problems, including low academic performance and aspirations, make substantial contributions to substance use and long-term academic attainment (selection effects), but the findings also suggest that high work intensity during high school has long-term costs in terms of college completion and perhaps cigarette use.
AB - Long hours of paid employment during high school have been linked to a variety of problem behaviors, but questions remain about whether and to what extent work intensity makes any causal contribution. This study addresses those questions by focusing on how 12th-grade work intensity is associated with substance use and educational attainment in the years following high school. It uses 2 nationally representative longitudinal data sets from the Monitoring the Future project, spanning a total of 3 decades. One data set tracks 8th graders for 8 years (modal ages 14-22) and provides extensive controls for possible prior causes; the second, larger data set tracks 12th graders for up to 12 years (to modal ages 29-30) and permits assessment of possible short-term and longer term consequences. Findings based on propensity score matching and multivariate regression analyses are highly consistent across the 2 sets of data. All findings show that more fundamental prior problems, including low academic performance and aspirations, make substantial contributions to substance use and long-term academic attainment (selection effects), but the findings also suggest that high work intensity during high school has long-term costs in terms of college completion and perhaps cigarette use.
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U2 - 10.1037/a0021027
DO - 10.1037/a0021027
M3 - Article
C2 - 21171751
AN - SCOPUS:79952577659
SN - 0012-1649
VL - 47
SP - 344
EP - 363
JO - Developmental psychology
JF - Developmental psychology
IS - 2
ER -