Urban Teenagers Work and Dropout

This article explores how employment affects the likelihood of dropout among high school students in Baltimore, a high-poverty city with a high dropout rate. Among 15-year-olds, those with teen jobs (e.g., lawn mowing, babysitting, etc.) were less than one third as likely to drop out as those who took adult-type jobs (manufacturing or business). This pattern reversed at age 16, however, because, at that age, holding an adult-type job as compared to a teen job reduced dropout risk. Patterns of work, for those older than ages 15 and 16, also affected dropout risk. Students who had been retained, but who made an orderly transition into work, were less likely to drop out than retained students who made a disorderly transition.