The impact of adolescent employment on family relationships

The present investigation examined the impact of adolescent employment on family process. Data collected from 725 adolescents were employed to compare mean levels of maternal and paternal family process scales (caring and trust, control and supervision, conflict, intimate communication, and instrumental communication) across three categories of adolescents: nonworkers, low-intensity workers (less than 20 hours per week), and high-intensity workers (20 or more hours per week). Most maternal and paternal family process scores followed a curvilinear pattern across the three work intensity groups, with low-intensity workers reporting the highest levels of family process (e.g., caring and trust), high-intensity workers the lowest levels, and nonworkers in between. LISREL analyses, which were used to test for similarities and/or differences in developmental process by sex and age, confirmed that relationships between work intensity and family process were highly similar for males versus females and for younger adolescents versus older adolescents.