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Author: Downing, Douglas Allan
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1. Downing, Douglas Allan
Teenage Employment: Personal Characteristics, Job Duration, and the Racial Unemployment Differential
Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University, 1987. DAI-A 48/10, p. 2694, Apr 1988
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Employment, Youth; Job Turnover; Racial Differences; Unemployment, Youth

The reasons for the high level of teenage unemployment, particularly for black teenagers, have been investigated using data from the 1980 census, the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience - Youth Cohort, the Current Population Survey, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics Gross Flow data. Most unemployed 16-17 year olds are found to be in school; most unemployed 18-19 year olds are out of school. Black teenagers are found to have shorter job durations when they are employed, but this is because they are much more likely than white teenagers to have their jobs come to an end, rather than that they are much more likely to quit or be fired. A model of frictional unemployment indicates that the high level of black unemployment cannot be accounted for by higher job turnover. Black teenagers are much more likely to have jobs with the government than are white teenagers, indicating that blacks lack informal connections that are one of the ways whites find out about job opportunities in the private sector. The labor market experience of several disadvantaged groups are investigated: central city residents, teenage women with children, teenagers from poor families, teenagers with low class standing in high school, and teenagers whose parents had low education. In each case blacks are more likely to be in the disadvantaged group, and members of the disadvantaged group are less likely to be employed, but there still is a degree of high black unemployment that cannot be explained because of membership in one of these disadvantaged groups. [UMI ADG87-29059]
Bibliography Citation
Downing, Douglas Allan. Teenage Employment: Personal Characteristics, Job Duration, and the Racial Unemployment Differential. Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University, 1987. DAI-A 48/10, p. 2694, Apr 1988.