NCJ Number
201001
Date Published
2002
Length
110 pages
Annotation
This report profiles associations between Finnish adolescents’ part-time work during the school year and deviant behaviors.
Abstract
This report from the National Research Institute of Legal Policy seeks to address delinquency, victimization, heavy drinking, and drug use among Finnish eighth and ninth grade lower-level secondary school students, and suggests that research concerning work among school-aged adolescents has a long history in Finland. Brief literature reviews focusing on adolescent work and the effects of intensive work in both the United States and the United Kingdom are presented, and the ways that adolescent work is described using criminological theories such as opportunity structure, strain, and control theories are discussed. Research contends that intensive work may be a reflection or consequence of the precocious transition to adult roles rather than an independent cause of deviant or problem behavior. The report briefly details legislation regulating adolescent work in Finland. Describing the research study population used to examine the issue of part-time work during the school year among Finnish boys and girls, the report details the Finnish Self-Report Delinquency Studies of 1998 and 2001 and the School Health Promotion Survey of 2000. The study found that the employment rate among Finnish eighth and ninth grade lower-level secondary school students was 13 to 15 percent at the time the questionnaires were administered. Furthermore, finding indicate that the relationship between intensive part-time work and delinquency was not similar across different kinds of delinquent acts. Additionally, intensive work did not increase victimization, alcohol, or drug use among adolescents. The majority of intensively working adolescents do not commit serious delinquent acts, do not drink weekly, and do not use illegal drugs. References