db Psyc 635

Millennials and the World of Work: Experiences in Paid Work During Adolescence

Jeremy Staff • John E. Schulenberg

Published online: 21 February 2010

� Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010

Abstract

Purpose This article considers some important questions

faced by youth as they enter and adapt to paid work. We

focus on two key questions: (1) how many hours should

teenagers work during the school year and (2) what

available jobs are desirable?

Design/Methodology/Approach To help answer these

questions, we review studies that have examined the effects

of early work experiences on academic achievement,

positive youth development, and health-risk behaviors. We

also draw upon nationally representative data from the

Monitoring the Future (MTF) study to illustrate some new

findings on youth employment.

Findings Moderate work hours, especially in jobs of

higher-quality, are associated with a broad range of posi-

tive developmental outcomes.

Implications These questions are not only important to

teenagers and their parents, they also reflect key debates

among scholars in sociology, developmental psychology,

and economics regarding the potential short- and long-term

consequences of early work experiences for social devel-

opment and socioeconomic achievement.

Originality/Value Although work intensity is an impor-

tant dimension of adolescent work experience, it is clearly

not the only one and we argue that it may not even be the

most important one. By focusing on types and qualities of

jobs, more can be gained in terms of understanding for

whom and under what conditions teenage work does pro-

vide benefits for and detriments to youth development.

Keywords Teenage employment � School-to-work transition � School achievement � Problem behaviors � Work quality � Life course studies

Combining school and work during adolescence, a fairly

recent and largely American phenomenon, is common for

the vast majority of young people today (Staff et al. 2009).

This sharing of work and school roles begins early in

adolescence (Entwisle et al. 2000), and research shows that

many youth today leave school with an extensive history of

employment experiences (Light 2001; Mortimer 2003;

Staff and Mortimer 2007). Done well, the combination of

work and school in adolescence can have some benefits

concerning the development of independence and other

skills useful for the transition to adulthood; done poorly,

there are numerous detriments involving school failure and

health-risk behaviors. Once the decision to work is made,

young people face two key questions: (1) how many hours

should they work and (2) where should they work? These

questions are not only important to teenagers today and

their parents, they also reflect key debates among scholars

in sociology, developmental psychology, and economics

regarding the potential costs and benefits of paid work for

adolescent adjustment and achievement.

To help answer these questions, we first provide a brief

review of studies that have examined the effects of early

work experiences on academic achievement, positive youth

development, and health-risk behaviors. We then highlight

some new evidence on this issue using data from the

A previous version of this manuscript was presented at the annual

meeting of the 2008 American Sociological Association.

J. Staff (&)

Department of Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University,

211 Oswald Tower, University Park, PA 16802-6207, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

J. E. Schulenberg

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

123

J Bus Psychol (2010) 25:247–255

DOI 10.1007/s10869-010-9167-4

ongoing Monitoring the Future (MTF) study. Since 1976,

the MTF project has collected data on large (approximately

17,000 students per grade) samples of middle and high

schools students in the United States each year (Johnston

et al. 2008a, b). Though the MTF project has collected data

on the employment experiences of earlier generations of

young people (e.g., late Boomers, Generation Xers), most

of the findings we highlight in this article are based upon

nationally representative samples of 8th, 10th, and 12th

graders born between the years 1977 and 2000, or youth

comprising the Millennial generation.

How Many Hours Should Youth Work?

As mentioned before, employment often begins in middle

school (Entwisle et al. 2000) and increases with age such

that almost all youth have some experience in paid work

while attending high school (National Research Council

1998; U.S. Department of Labor 2000). For instance, in the

MTF study between 1977 and 2000, only 35% of 8th

graders and 40% of 10th graders were employed when

school is in session, while over 75% of 12th graders

worked in paid jobs (Staff et al. 2009). It is clear that youth

spend longer hours at work as they progress through sec-

ondary school. Eight percent of the employed 8th graders

in the MTF worked over 20 hours per week during the

school year, compared to 40% of employed 12th graders

(Staff et al. 2009).

Are the early work experiences of the Millennials dif-

ferent from earlier generations of youth? As we have

described in our previous research (Staff et al. 2009), the

percentage of employed students and the number of hours

they work has changed very little in the past 40 years (see

also Ruhm 1997). For example, Fig. 1 shows the distri-

bution of workers and the number of hours worked during

the school year for nationally representative samples of

12th graders in 1976, 1986, 1996, and 2006. As shown in

Fig. 1, the number of non-working 12th graders in 2006

(approximately 27%) is slightly, but not significantly,

higher than in 1976. Nevertheless, the distribution of hours

worked among employed youth during the school year is

remarkably similar across the four cohorts of youth com-

prising late Boomers, Generation Xers, and Millennials.

If the majority of teenagers today work while attending

secondary school, then how much should they work? On

the one hand, some scholars have argued that the number

of hours worked during the school week has a negative

association with school success and with positive youth

development (Greenberger and Steinberg 1986). Indeed,

research shows that youth across the generations who

spend long hours on the job report fewer hours of home-

work and participation in school-related sports, clubs, and

other activities; lower standardized test scores and grade

point averages (GPAs); and a lower probability of high

school graduation than youth who do not work or who limit

their hours (Lee and Staff 2007; Marsh and Kleitman 2005;

Osgood 1999). Long hours on the job are also associated

with potential health-risk behaviors such as less sleep,

exercise, and healthy eating (Bachman and Schulenberg

1993). In addition, youth across the generations who work

intensively are more likely to engage in unsupervised

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Not Employed 5 or less 6 to 10 11 to 15 16 to 20 21 to 25 26 to 30 31 +

Pe rc

en ta

ge o

f Y ou

th

Average Number of Hours Worked Per Week during the School Year

1976 cohort

1986 cohort

1996 cohort

2006 cohort

Fig. 1 Percent of employed

students and number of hours

worked during the school year:

MTF 12th graders (1976, 1986,

1996, and 2006 12th-grade

cohorts). Source: Staff, J.,

Messersmith, E. E., &

Schulenberg, J. E. (2009).

Adolescents and the world of

work. In R. Lerner & L.

Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (3rd ed.,

pp. 270–313). New York: John

Wiley & Sons

248 J Bus Psychol (2010) 25:247–255

123

activities with their friends, such as going to parties, riding

around in cars for fun, and spending evenings out for fun

and recreation, than are youth working fewer hours or not

at all. Research shows that these unstructured activities

increase the likelihood of delinquency, substance use, and

other problem behaviors (Osgood 1999; Safron et al. 2001),

and indeed, evidence suggests that those youth who work

more than 20 hours per week are more likely to engage in

delinquency, substance use, and school-related misconduct

(Uggen and Wakefield 2008). However, it remains

unknown the extent to which these relationships are causal,

such that long hours of work cause problem behaviors. As

we discuss in more detail below, the alternative explana-

tion is that both long hours and health-risk behaviors have a

common cause, such as early disengagement from school

or deviant peers (Bachman et al. 2008; Staff et al. 2009).

In addition to understanding causal direction, one needs

to attend to potential non-linear effects of paid work on

achievement and positive youth development. In fact,

evidence is mounting that limited work hours are benefi-

cial, whereas only excessive involvement in paid work is

harmful. For instance, longitudinal research on two cohorts

from Generation X shows that teenagers who work mod-

erately (i.e., average 20 hours or less per week) during the

school year do not spend less time on homework and

extracurricular activities than their non-working peers

(Schoenhals et al. 1998; Shanahan and Flaherty 2001), and

shows greater academic achievement and likelihood of

high school completion (Mortimer and Johnson 1998).

Other studies have shown potential developmental benefits

of paid work with respect to improved health and well-

being, the development of responsibility and time-

management skills, and improved family relationships

(Mortimer 2003; Mortimer et al. 1996; Mortimer and

Shanahan 1994). Moreover, in young adulthood, youth who

worked moderately over the duration of high school

showed higher levels of educational and occupational

attainment than their counterparts who worked intensively,

or not at all, during the high school years (Carr et al. 1996;

Mortimer 2003; Ruhm 1997; Staff and Mortimer 2007).

Again, however, the extent to which these relationships are

causal is not clear—for example, those who work moder-

ately may already have more initiative and be more orga-

nized and future oriented.

One might conclude from the available evidence that

youth should avoid intensive work during the school year

and only work limited hours. Parents, businesses, and

policy-makers could establish sensible policies to restrict

work hours for teenagers during the school year. Unfortu-

nately, the story is not this simple. As we review below, an

emerging body of research argues that the poor achieve-

ment and adjustment evident among intensive workers

reflects selection processes and not causal work effects.

These spurious arguments question whether youth would

indeed benefit from legislative efforts to curb teenage work

hours during the school year.

Spurious Arguments

Several researchers have suggested that intensive involve-

ment in paid work may not cause poor achievement or

engagement in health-risk behaviors, but instead constitute

a syndrome of early adult-like identity formation (Bach-

man and Schulenberg 1993). Prior engagement in delin-

quency, such as drinking, having sex, using drugs, and

school misconduct, may predispose some youth to enter

work environments in which employers and coworkers

offer less social constraints on these behaviors than do

teachers and parents (Newcomb and Bentler 1988). In fact,

longitudinal research on a cohort from Generation X shows

that 9th graders with higher rates of problem behaviors

(e.g., substance use, school-related deviance, and law

violations) reported greater work hours in subsequent years

of high school (Mortimer 2003; Staff and Uggen 2003). In

a series of papers, Apel et al. (2006, 2007) and Paternoster

et al. (2003) found that intensive work has little effect on

delinquency, substance use, and other problem behaviors

once accounting for these likely sources of spuriousness.

Likewise, Rothstein (2007) found that controlling for

unobserved individual differences reduced the relationship

between intensive hours and GPA to statistical non-sig-

nificance. These findings may reflect the notion that youth

across generations who have less interest or success in

school and other extracurricular activities may be drawn to

the autonomy, pay, and status that can come from working

(Bachman and Schulenberg 1993; Staff and Uggen 2003).

Bachman et al. (2003) show that an early desire for

intensive work hours (measured before the youth obtained

jobs) predates both work involvement and problem

behaviors in later adolescence. Thus, the argument here is

that hours of work has little independent effect for at least

some young people. As noted below, the apparent effects

instead reflect other more fundamental causes.

Evidence from the Monitoring the Future Study

To help illustrate the importance of this spurious argument,

Fig. 2 presents mean levels of GPA among working and

non-working youth at various ages (i.e., in the 8th, 10th,

and 12th grades). We display GPA, ranging on a nine-point

scale from ‘‘D’’ to ‘‘A,’’ as a z-Score to ease interpretation.

For this graph, we included only youth from the Millennial

generation (combined cohorts from 1991 to 2006). Similar

to most previous research, we distinguished working Mil-

lennial youth who were employed intensively (i.e., aver-

aged over 20 hours per week during the school year) from

J Bus Psychol (2010) 25:247–255 249

123

those who worked moderate hours (i.e., 20 hours or less

per week). In a series of recent papers, we have argued that

it is important to consider the extent to which orientations

toward work affect achievement among jobless youth who

have a strong desire for work but may lack the opportunity

for meaningful employment (Bachman et al. 2003; Staff

et al. 2006, 2008). Numerous factors could keep youth

from holding desired jobs, such as poor local-labor market

conditions, discrimination, obligations to school and fam-

ily, compulsory school attendance, and age restrictions

limiting the hours and type of employment, even if they

had a strong desire to work. These preferences for long

hours on the job, and not necessarily high-intensity work

per se, could affect school achievement and positive youth

development (Warren 2002).

In the MTF surveys, the preference for work is based

upon the question asked of all students: ‘‘Think about the

kinds of paid jobs that people your age usually have. If you

could work just the hours you wanted, how many hours per

week would you PREFER to work?’’ In this example, we

assigned non-working youth to one of three mutually

exclusive categories based upon their preference for work:

(1) non-workers who prefer intensive work (these youth

were not employed during the school year but wished they

could have worked 20 hours or more per week); (2) non-

workers who prefer moderate work (they also averaged 0

hours of paid work during the school year but preferred to

work 20 hours or less per week); and (3) non-workers who

preferred not to work or who were uncertain.

Figure 2 shows a similar pattern of low achievement

among the intensive workers and the non-workers who

preferred to work intensively. Both groups of youth from

the Millennial generation scored relatively low GPAs in the

8th, 10th, and 12th grades. In contrast, moderate work

hours (both actual and preferred) were associated with

school success. Students who were jobless and preferred

not to work (or were uncertain as to how many hours they

would like to work) were similar to youth who were also

jobless but preferred to work just a little. Although not

shown in Fig. 2, it is important to note that among Mil-

lennial youth, only 5% of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders in the

MTF study indicated that they had no desire to work (and

less than 1% of employed youth wished they did not have

to work).

This simple illustration highlights some important

selection issues regarding paid work effects on achieve-

ment among young people. Previous research and our

example above suggest that Baby Boom, Generation X,

and Millennial youth all perform poorly when they both

wish to and actually do work long hours. This suggests that

poorly performing youth may be selecting more intensive

paid work experiences rather than high-intensity work

compromising school success. We believe that Fig. 2 also

nicely illustrates how work ‘‘effects’’ may be conditioned

Fig. 2 Grade point average in the 8th, 10th, and 12th grades

(z-Scores) by actual and preferred work hours: MTF 8th, 10th, and

12th graders (combined cohorts from 1991 to 2006). Source: Staff, J.,

Schulenberg, J., & Bachman, J. (2008). Explaining the academic

engagement and performance of employed youth. Paper presented at

the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence,

March 6–9

250 J Bus Psychol (2010) 25:247–255

123

by preexisting background factors. For instance, actually

working moderate hours (compared to non-working and

desiring moderate hours) appears to have been more ben-

eficial for older rather than younger youth in the Millennial

generation. Likewise, older youth perform worse in school

when they wish for long hours on the job (but remain

jobless), compared to when they actually work long hours.

Younger youth, on the other hand, appear to have the

lowest GPAs when they spend long hours on the job.

Returning to the question of how many hours youth

should work, the answer is not so simple. Evidence just

presented suggests that work motivations can contribute to

poor achievement, depending on how much the young

person wants to work. For instance, among non-working

youth, those who wish they could work long hours had

lower grades than those who would prefer to work mod-

erately. Since the motivations for paid work often precede

the actual experience of employment (Bachman et al.

2003), some youth may have strong orientations toward

work, but are externally constrained from holding a job

(e.g., they are too young, they lack a car, they have no prior

work experience, etc.). All things considered, desiring to

work moderate hours, or actually working moderate hours,

may have more benefits than other configurations.

What Types of Jobs are Desirable?

The second question facing youth as they enter paid work

is what type of job they should work in. This issue may be

especially important among recent cohorts of youth (i.e.,

Generation Xers and Millennials) because some scholars

have suggested that the teenage work experience is worse

today than in years past (Greenberger and Steinberg 1986;

see also Aronson et al. 1996 for a contrary view). For

instance, Greenberger and Steinberg (1986) argued that the

majority of teenage jobs, especially those in fast-food

restaurants and retail settings, no longer provide skills and

workplace knowledge as preparation for adult work, in part

because most teenagers work in jobs with no opportunities

for meaningful interaction with adult mentors and super-

visors (Greenberger 1988). Furthermore, the absence of

adults in these workplace settings may heighten the risk of

crime and misconduct, such as giving away products,

providing free services, fabricating hours on a timecard, or

vandalizing company property. In such occupational set-

tings, the workplace is no longer a stepping-stone to future

adult roles through mentorship and skill acquisition.

In order to answer the question about what jobs are

desirable for young people, we first need to identify the

components of a good job. Looking to adult conceptions of

good jobs is not especially useful because most young

people from recent cohorts (i.e., Generation X and

Millennial) work in jobs that involve relatively low pay,

limited benefits, and entail work arrangements that are

often informal and temporary (Kalleberg et al. 2000).

Hirschman and Voloshin (2007) considered employment as

lifeguards, athletic coaches, tutors, office clerks, or recep-

tionists as ‘‘good jobs’’ in adolescence because youth who

work in these types of jobs earn high wages and often can

moderate the number of hours they work per week. Yet

past research shows that the conditions of youth work vary

substantially across other important dimensions such as its

degree of learning opportunities and skill utilization, its

demanding and stressful features, and its compatibility with

school, family, and friends (Mortimer 2003). Past research

also shows that these qualities of paid work affect mental

health and problem behaviors during adolescence. For

instance, wage satisfaction and the compatibility of paid

work with school enhance feelings of well-being, while job

stressors increase depressive affect and reduce self-efficacy

(Finch et al. 1991; Mortimer et al. 2002). Skill utilization in

the workplace fosters both intrinsic and extrinsic occupa-

tional values (Mortimer et al. 1996), as well as improves

the quality of relationships with parents (Mortimer and

Shanahan 1994). Early work qualities have also been

shown to affect delinquency and substance use (Staff and

Uggen 2003). This research finds that many employment

conditions that are valued by adults, such as workplace

autonomy, pay, and status, worsen problem behaviors

when experienced during adolescence. In contrast, work

that is more age-appropriate, with clear linkages to school

and with opportunities to learn new skills, reduces delin-

quency and substance use. Consistent with this point of

view, Schulenberg and Bachman (1993) found that youths

were less likely to use drugs and alcohol when their early

work experiences were connected to future careers and

provided opportunities to learn new skills.

Evidence from the Monitoring the Future Study

In order to illustrate what types of jobs constitute desirable

employment experiences during the teenage years for

young people today, we draw upon measures of work

quality among employed 12th graders in the MTF dataset.

(The MTF project contains limited information regarding

the workplace conditions of 8th and 10th graders, so it is

not presented here.) Figure 3 shows mean levels of job

quality across different types of jobs based upon a com-

bined dataset of 12 cohorts of 12th graders from 1995 to

2006 (encompassing Generation X and Millennial youth).

The self-reported measures of job quality indicate the

extent to which the 12th grader’s current job: (1) causes

stress and tension; (2) interferes with education, family, or

social life; (3) uses their skills and abilities, makes good

use of their special skills at work, and provides them

J Bus Psychol (2010) 25:247–255 251

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opportunities to learn new skills; (4) is comprised of

teenage coworkers; and (5) is a career-like job. We also

included a measure of the average number of hours they

worked during the school year. Again, we display each of

these variables as z-Scores to ease interpretation.

We then coded job type into seven categories: (1)

informal jobs (e.g., babysitting, newspaper delivery, yard

maintenance, and odd jobs); (2) fast-food jobs; (3) restau-

rant jobs (e.g., waiters and waitresses, cooks); (4) farm and

agriculture jobs; (5) sales and retail jobs; (6) office or

clerical positions; and (7) other jobs. Figure 3 shows the

percentage of 12th grade workers in each occupational

category.

As shown in Fig. 3, of the seven job types, fast-food

workers (comprising 13% of employed 12th graders) rate

poorly across the work quality dimensions. For instance,

fast-food workers report the highest levels of job stress and

job interference with school, family, and friends. Youth in

fast-food settings also work with young coworkers and are

unlikely to indicate that their job provides skills or is a

‘‘career-like’’ job. Youth employed as store clerks and in

sales positions, which are the most typical among the

young workers, report high levels of job stress, low levels

of job skills and career potential, and interference with

school, friends, and families. The most desirable jobs

appear to be in office and clerical positions (8% of work-

ers), as youth in these jobs report low job stress, older

coworkers and supervisors, little interference with school

and family roles, and ample opportunities to learn new

skills or build a career.

Compared to prior generations, Generation X and Mil-

lennial youth are much less likely to work in agriculture,

mining, construction, manufacturing, and even the service

industry (National Research Council 1998). Instead, youth

today are increasingly likely to work in department stores,

grocery stores, restaurants, and retail stores (see the U.S.

Department of Labor 2000). Importantly, one-third of

working teenagers today are employed in eating and

drinking establishments, and as we show above, these jobs

often entail young coworkers and supervisors, job stress,

and interference with family, friends, and school.

However, although we show in this example some dif-

ferences in how youth rate different types of jobs, it should

also be noted that overall, employed youth were generally

positive about their early work experiences. In order to

illustrate this point, Fig. 4 displays the average values of

the work quality dimensions for nearly a quarter of decade

(from 1982 to 2006, including Baby Boomers, Generation

Xers, and Millennials). For instance, on average, employed

youth experienced job stress ‘‘to some extent’’ and ‘‘a

Fig. 3 Dimensions of work quality (z-Scores) in the 12th grade by

job type: MTF 12th graders only (combined cohorts from 1995 to

2006). Source: Staff, J., Messersmith, E. E., & Schulenberg, J. E.

(2009). Adolescents and the world of work. In R. Lerner & L.

Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (3rd ed., pp.

270–313). New York: John Wiley & Sons

252 J Bus Psychol (2010) 25:247–255

123

little’’ interference with family, school, and friends.

Employed youth also used their job skills ‘‘to some

extent,’’ reported that their jobs had ‘‘a little bit’’ of career

potential, and said about half of their coworkers were

within two or three years of their own age. What is espe-

cially striking in Fig. 4 is how little these dimensions of

work quality have changed in the past 25 years; Baby

Boomers, Generation Xers, and Millennials responded in

largely the same way to the same questions at the same age.

Moreover, as we had previously shown, the average hours

of employment among working 12th graders has changed

very little in the past 30 years. Thus, Baby Boomers,

Generation Xers, and Millennials have all worked about the

same number of hours at the same age.

Conclusion and Future Directions

Overall, there has been little change in youth work patterns

over three generations, from Baby Boomers to Generation

Xers to Millennials. Our aim in this article was to highlight

some key questions facing youth today as they enter the

world of work, regarding work intensity and job type.

Previous research leads us to conclude that youth should

Fig. 4 Dimensions of work

quality in the 12th grade from

1982 to 2006: MTF 12th graders

only (combined cohorts from

1982 to 2006)

J Bus Psychol (2010) 25:247–255 253

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limit the hours they devote to work during the school year

and perhaps aim to work in an office or clerical-type

position. In the general case, this would be the ‘‘ideal’’ job

for today’s teenager.

Nevertheless, as we have shown in our previous study,

as well as demonstrate in the example above, work moti-

vations can also contribute to poor achievement depending

on how much the young person wants to work. This sug-

gests that work hours may have little independent effect for

at least some young people (Staff et al. 2006, 2008). The

desire for employment among youth is a useful way to

disentangle causal versus spurious effects of work on youth

achievement and adjustment. We also highlighted some of

the factors that lead youth into work of varying hours,

duration, and quality, and at the same time keep them from

holding desired types of jobs and levels of intensity.

Against this backdrop, it is important to specify the

conditions under which the effects of teenage work hours

on social development vary by gender, race and ethnicity,

and socioeconomic background. Young people from more

or less advantaged backgrounds may have varying con-

ceptions of what are ‘‘intensive’’ and ‘‘moderate’’ work

investments during the school year. Moreover, the per-

ceived quality of jobs may also vary by these sociodemo-

graphic characteristics. For example, although fast-food

work, on average, is associated with poor work quality in

Fig. 3, youth in poor neighborhoods often must find jobs in

a limited and competitive labor market. In such settings,

work in fast-food restaurants can link teenagers with older

adults in the community and foster positive social devel-

opment (Newman 1999). In contrast, youth residing in

more affluent neighborhoods may find numerous employ-

ment opportunities and thus may have little stake in even

high quality office and clerical positions.

Given the findings we highlight in this article, an

obvious recommendation for future research is to attend to

the type of work experiences when examining the possible

positive and negative effects of paid work on adolescent

development. Past studies overwhelmingly focus on the

hours of work and devote very little attention to different

types of jobs and qualities of work experience (National

Research Council 1998). Although work intensity is an

important dimension of adolescent work experience, it is

clearly not the only one and may not even be the most

important one (Staff et al. 2009). By examining work

intensity exclusively as a main effect, the extant literature

may be missing the complex realities of adolescent work

experience whereby hours of work serve largely to mod-

erate the effects of the type and quality of work. By

focusing more on types and qualities of jobs, more can be

gained in terms of understanding for whom and under what

conditions teenage work does provide benefits for and

detriments to optimal development.

Despite some unanswered questions, we can tentatively

reach the following conclusion regarding the relationship

between paid work and youth development: moderate work

hours, especially in jobs of higher quality, are associated

with a broad range of positive developmental outcomes.

We are hesitant to discourage all youth from working

intensively, or from avoiding jobs that are not office and

clerical positions, as even high-intensity work in fast-food

jobs has been shown to be beneficial for some young

people. Future research will help provide better answers

about the conditions and benefits of high quality work in

adolescence for subsequent generations of youth.

Acknowledgments The first author gratefully acknowledges sup-

port from a Mentored Research Scientist Development Award in

Population Research from the National Institute of Child Health and

Human Development (K01 HD054467). This paper uses data from the

Monitoring the Future study, which is supported by a grant from the

National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01 DA01411); the second author

gratefully acknowledges support from this grant. The findings and

conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not neces-

sarily represent the views of the sponsors. We also wish to

acknowledge our coauthors on several related projects that we

describe in this review: Jerald G. Bachman, Emily Messersmith, D.

Wayne Osgood, and Michael Parks.

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