The recognition that the majority of British children are involved in paid
employment at some time before the minimum school leaving age has not been
accompanied by comparable analytical advances. Large numbers work in areas
beyond those traditionally identified with 'children's work' and are to be
found in marginal, flexible, service sector jobs, defined by unskilled and
low paid manual labour. The efforts of US researchers to link 'adolescent w
ork' to child development and socialisation merely pathologises children's
involvement in work, while the greater sensitivity of British researchers t
o the possible connections between work and changes to children's social li
ves provides only limited insight. It is demonstrated here that children's
involvement in work is closely related to employers' increased demand for p
art-time student labour and that children are making themselves available f
or work in response to both the changing distribution of family income and
the commodification of their leisure time.