“With summer in full swing and kids sitting on the couch, parents are wondering whether to push them to find a job,” says Sauder professor Marc-David L. Seidel, who co-authored the study. “Parents may think that their kids could do better than a job at the local fast food joint. But our study shows even flipping burgers has value – particularly if it leads to part-time work later during school term.”

Seidel and his co-authors found teens in part-time jobs progress to better-suited careers since the early exposure to work helps them hone their preferences. They enhance their soft skills, acquire better references and learn how to job-hunt more successfully – establishing wider career networks.

The more hours that 15-year-olds work, particularly during the school term when they have to learn to manage their time, the better their career prospects, says Seidel. The study showed benefits arose from working up to as much as 33 hours per week during the school year or 43 hours during summer.

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Researchers used data from the Statistics Canada Youth in Transition Survey. This represented 246,661 15-year-old Canadian teenagers, looking at their work history over a 10-year period beginning at age 15 and ending at 25 in 2009.

“Adolescent labour has been stigmatized as exploitative with many parents opting to put their kids in summer camp rather than summer jobs,” says Seidel. “However, our research shows that working can offer educational and developmental opportunities that prepare adolescents for the real world.”

Background

The study, Beneficial “Child labor”: The impact of adolescent work on future professional outcomes appears in the latest edition of the journal Research in the Sociology of Work. It was co-authored with Sauder Ph.D. student Marjan Houshmand and Sauder Commerce Scholar Alum Dennis G. Ma.