Review of Young workers: Varieties of experience.

Abstract

JULIAN BARLING and E. KEVIN KELLOWAY (Eds.)Young Workers: Varieties of ExperienceWashington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1999, 282 pages (ISBN 1-55798-563-4, US$ 39.95, Hardcover)Reviewed by DANIEL SKARLICKIThis edited book focuses on an important yet relatively overlooked component of industrial and organizational psychology: the work experiences of young workers. The topic warrants close attention for at least two good reasons. First, adolescent employment can have negative social and psychological effects on employed youth (Greenberger & Steinberg, 1981, 1986). This issue is especially compelling when one considers that, as the book's jacket states, by the time North American teenagers graduate from high school, 80% of them will have been employed on a part-time basis. Second, work attitudes are most malleable during the younger years and then relatively stable thereafter (Staw & Ross, 1985). Thus, the experiences and attitude formation of young workers can be an important variable in understanding work attitudes later in life.Julian Barling and Kevin Kelloway bring together in this book a collection of original stand-alone essays written by academics for a diverse audience. They provide a comprehensive and sometimes surprising description of how young workers experience their first jobs, how they form their work-related beliefs and attitudes, and what factors can influence their experiences.In their own contribution to the book, Barling and Kelloway question the commonly held assumption that employment teaches young people responsibility and gives them the opportunity to demonstrate initiative and independence. The authors introduce a paradox to unveil the general theme of the book: despite being highly valued by society, extensive data illustrate that youth employment often has seriously adverse consequences. They then provide a persuasive argument that highlights important distinctions among adolescent work experiences: youth are not a homogeneous group and employment is not a homogenous experience.Catherine Loughlin and Barling provide a thorough review of the literature on youth employment, which has tended to focus on quantifying youth employment (e.g., number of hours worked per week), and more recently has been concerned with its quality (e.g., working long hours while attending school on a full-time basis). The authors suggest it is unlikely that young people acquire high-quality jobs. Instead they tend to face adverse working conditions that involve stress and danger (e.g., working with hot deep fryer grease or toxic chemicals), no health and safety training, no personal control, no input into decisions, and work overload. They conclude with an appeal for more research on the effect of work quality on young peoples' attitudes.Kelloway and Steve Harvey propose that people's understanding of employment begins well before their first employment experience. Non- neutral work attitudes are formed by such factors as parents, media, and peers. The authors propose that pre-entry experiences and vicarious exposure to work influence subsequent attitudes and should be considered when specifying models of subsequent job attitudes.Serge Desmarais and James Curtis describe how young people's early experiences reinforce gender-based orientations toward subsequent work- role segregation and income entitlement. For example, girls tend to work in baby-sitting and care-giving roles, while boys tend to engage in manual labour. The authors cite data showing that young women are paid less than young men, a condition that is perpetuated when they become adults.Michael Frone examines the relationships between characteristics of employment (e.g., work status, hours, quality) and developmental outcomes (e.g., academic, employment, family) of employment among adolescents. Frone shows that although simply being employed during adolescence has no appreciable relation to development, many work hours per week during high school has the potential to undermine educational achievement, lower post-high school attainment among males, and increase the likelihood of substance use and delinquent behaviour. …