Labor, 1998). Non-white adolescents are less likely to be employed at
all during high school; when they are, they tend to be employed for
fewer months than white adolescents (Carr et al., 1996; D’Amico,
1984; Marsh, 1991; Schoenhals, Tienda, & Schneider, 1998;
Mortimer & Johnson, 1998). Mortimer and Johnson (1998) also
find in the Youth Development Study that school orientation and
achievement in 9th grade predict work investment patterns in 10th
through 12th grade. Students with higher academic self-esteem,
intrinsic motivation to school, and grades worked fewer hours per
week. Students with high educational goals were most likely to
work rather continuously over the high school years at low inten-
sity. Thus youth from advantaged backgrounds and those who are
academically oriented tend to invest in work experience during
adolescence in ways that have beneficial outcomes. Youth who
have fewer resources, coming from lower socioeconomic back-
grounds and with less promising initial attitudes toward schooling,
pursue more highly intensive work during high school, reducing
their educational attainment.
As a result of these patterns, the meaning of adolescent work
experiences can vary considerably. The consequences of working, for
example, can depend on whether any earnings are saved for college
(Marsh, 1991). McNeal (1997) reports that sophomores in high
school who work more hours are more likely to subsequently drop
out of high school, but the relationship only held for certain types of
jobs. Intensity of employment mattered little for those young people
working on farms or in retail jobs but had substantial effects for jobs
in manufacturing or service. Adolescents’ motivations for working
and the individual or community factors involved in selecting par-
ticular types of jobs likely help to explain these patterns. Paralleling
the finding in McNeal’s study that working on a farm has unique
meaning for school persistence, rural-urban differences in the con-
sequences of work have also been observed (Shanahan et al., 1996).
Community. Occupational choice and attainment are shaped by
community labor market conditions. These are particularly impor-
58 CAREER CHOICE AND DEVELOPMENT